Re: unclear questions

"Rhino" <no.offline.contact.please@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote on Sat, 15 Oct
2005 19:25:06 -0400 in comp.lang.java.help:

>
>"Roedy Green" <my_email_is_posted_on_my_website@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>message news:ahs2l1pig0el5f6i2iglpjbcbecdk1mo9r@xxxxxxxxxx
>> When someone asks an unclear question, you have basically two options:
>>
>> 1. rephrase it as a plausible clear question.
>>
>> 2. rephrase it as an idiotic clear question.
>>
>> What are the pros and cons of either approach?
>> --
>Another fairly obvious approach is to ask them what they meant. It means
>some more back and forth but it can save you work.

Or, it could waste your time when the person doesn't respond to your
request for more info. If you've been following this group, or other
programming groups, for any length of time, you've seen it happen. And
it seems to me that the less effort an OP puts into his original post,
and the closer it is to incomprehensible gibberish, the less likely it
is that the OP will respond to requests for more info. And conversely,
if an OP puts some thought into his post and some effort to be
accurate and complete with the details he provides, then he's more
likely to try to help others who are trying to help him.

And I know it's not what you meant, but as far as "saving you work"
goes, that implies that the people who answer questions here are
somehow obligated to help even those who post incomprehensible
questions.

I've said it before here, but it bears repeating: If someone can't be
bothered to, for example, include the actual text of an error message
they're getting, then I can't be bothered to try and figure out what's
causing that error message. I bear them no ill will, and I don't
publicly berate them for their post like some will, but nor will I
waste any time on them. That's how I "save work."

>For example, if the question can be taken three different ways, you *could*
>give the answers for all three possible interpretations of the question but
>that's a lot of writing and there is no guarantee that they didn't mean
>something else entirely. Unless you really like writing, it might be smarter
>to simply ask the user to clarify the question. This approach increases the
>time it takes for the questioner to get his answer but it *might* make him
>more careful about asking the next time, which could be to everyone's
>advantage.

Ample history disproves that theory. More likely it will leave the OP
and others with the impression that it's perfectly OK to post
unintelligible questions, because the nice, patient folks here will
bend over backwards trying to divine their actual meanings, to the
point of even posting multple answers to questions they *think* the OP
might be asking, or failing that, will always give them a chance to
provide more information so they can be helped.


.

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