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Finding someone smart to talk to is important, and a lot of people fail at this step. I like to consider myself decently good at Linux troubleshooting and get

by phil21 10y ago

Finding someone smart to talk to is important, and a lot of people fail at this step. I like to consider myself decently good at Linux troubleshooting and get asked a lot of questions most days. My sole piece of advice to folks looking for help: Be specific and help yourself. This means don't come and ask "why is my server slow?!" - it's coming into the conversation telling me the exact symptoms and what you've already tried and where you think the next steps are. If you are not at that point, you haven't put enough effort in for me to bother. Those are called paid consulting engagements. I would say most people get this wrong, and end up being ignored over time. The few folks who consistently give me interesting (even if they are trivial and I've seen it before) problems to help them with that they just need a bit of specific knowledge to solve? I look forward to them contacting me.

soperj 10y ago
You don't even necessarily need to be talking to someone smart, or with any knowledge in the subject at all. Often times I'll figure something out just by explaining the problem to someone. The act of breaking down where the problems could be and showing someone what you've tried often leads to more ideas on how to fix it.
- AceJohnny2 10y ago
  hence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
  - soperj 10y ago
    Interesting. Somehow i have no recollection of that term even after reading that book. It was a number of years ago now... perhaps it's time for a revisit.
- haimez 10y ago
  Only for problems that were just out of reach for your normal mindset but still ultimately within your capability to handle. At a certain point, you need someone better than yourself to get better.
- aangjie 10y ago
  Yeah.. I've solved quite a few problems by writing out a question on Stack overflow but found solutions/ideas before posting it.
dtzWill 10y ago
This is good advice, and understanding this is the key to interacting with 'hacker' types. A good document to read or link from your project's "Contact" section is this FAQ on asking smart questions: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html It might not be quite right for your project but for many projects I've been part of it's pretty spot-on, at least as a starting point to avoid the worst of the 'bad' questions. Our IRC bot had a command for linking this to people, haha O:). Related: http://bash.org/?152037 http://bash.org/?152037

by phil21 10y ago

soperj 10y ago

You don't even necessarily need to be talking to someone smart, or with any knowledge in the subject at all. Often times I'll figure something out just by explaining the problem to someone. The act of breaking down where the problems could be and showing someone what you've tried often leads to more ideas on how to fix it.

AceJohnny2 10y ago
hence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
- soperj 10y ago
  Interesting. Somehow i have no recollection of that term even after reading that book. It was a number of years ago now... perhaps it's time for a revisit.
haimez 10y ago
Only for problems that were just out of reach for your normal mindset but still ultimately within your capability to handle. At a certain point, you need someone better than yourself to get better.
aangjie 10y ago
Yeah.. I've solved quite a few problems by writing out a question on Stack overflow but found solutions/ideas before posting it.

dtzWill 10y ago

This is good advice, and understanding this is the key to interacting with 'hacker' types. A good document to read or link from your project's "Contact" section is this FAQ on asking smart questions: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html It might not be quite right for your project but for many projects I've been part of it's pretty spot-on, at least as a starting point to avoid the worst of the 'bad' questions. Our IRC bot had a command for linking this to people, haha O:). Related: http://bash.org/?152037 http://bash.org/?152037