We see a lot of new users coming up and asking questions, which is great. But a lot of people ask “Can I ask a question?” which leads to an unnecessary indirection that “Yes, you can”. Or they say “Can anyone help me?”, “I’m having a problem” without mentioning their problem or even if they mention the problem “I cannot setup the project. It throws an error”, then they don’t mention the error. This leads to a loop of repeated question answers.
- Please ask the question in the message itself
- Mention what is the problem
- Mention what you tried
- Mention what failed
- Mention the error with the exact error message/screenshot of the failure
To save both your and maintainer’s time in solving your issue.
Please read this: https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/
Also, respect time zones, people’s personal space, and time and realize that most people help others voluntarily. They are in different timezone than you and may take hours before replying. Use public channels so that even others may answer your questions, don’t spam and be patient, they may reply in their own time when they feel comfortable.
And also answer other’s questions if you know the solution.
“Now that you’ve read all the issues and pull requests, start to watch for questions that you can answer. It won’t take too long before you notice that someone is asking a question that’s been answered before, or that’s answered in the docs that you just read. Answer the questions you know how to answer.”
— Andre Arko.net
Please join us to ask your question or answer a question of contributor on our channel at https://gitter.im/fossasia/fossasia