Do smart questions lead to smart answers?
07 Sep 2023
What makes something a smart question
Have you ever been in class and someone asks a question that was so common sense that it was like a fact ingrained in you from birth? Or when someone asks something that the teacher just went over? Well there are things that are obviously bad questions. But what makes a good question?
A good question shows effort
Nobody wants to answer something that someone clearly did not try on and shows no genuine attempt on solving it. Because why would I care when they don’t. Especially someone that is a random person on the internet. People solving these questions on stack overflow are doing it out of their own time, they aren’t hired like some other people at Apple’s help desk or whatever. So because they are not tied to a job, there is no obligation, they just do it because they want to, so show them that you care, and people will be more inclined to help.
A good question is specific
My example of a bad question is Stackoverflow, bad. Which essentially if you don’t want to click on the link is, I have to access variables with this code. Well have you done anything? What exactly do you want me to do with accessing variables? There’s just too many questions that make it harder for the answerer to do, and such is not something that they would spend their time on.
Asking a smart question could lead to dumb answers
Now, although stack overflow has an upvote/downvote system, and is generally answered by people who know what they are talking about, this is the internet we are talking about and anyone can answer anything. So you could take your time and write the most beautiful, most thorough question ever, and still get a dumb answer and could even be harmful by being wrong. On the flip side, you could also write the most uninspiring question and get a wonderful answer for that. But most of the time it will end up like this Stackoverflow, good. If you ask a clean question in which they get a clean answer about what types of application requires different types of dependencies.
At the end of the day, just make it easier for everyone, google beforehand and think before writing a question.