Asking questions as a web developer: how not to get ZERO answers

You’ve spent hours trying to find out why that JS library is throwing an error.

You’ve searched on Google. You’ve searched on Stack Overflow. Read dozens of Medium articles. Scrolled down countless confusing GitHub issue threads.

Now it’s time to ask for help.

You read the guidelines for posting in your platform of choice. Write the title and description of the problem, relevant code, and hit that “Post Question” button. And now, you’re waiting for answers to pile up.

But you get nothing.

Zero people answer your question, and it’s been days. Surely the framework you’re using isn’t unpopular, so what happened?

Here’s a few tips to help you ask questions in a way that won’t make people go “OK this is confusing, let someone else bother”.

Remove obstacles for people who don’t have to help

When asking questions on the Internet, people are not obligated to help you. It’s your responsibility to provide the information they’ll need, and make it easy for them to give you an answer.

Try to think of reasons why someone would look at your question and keep scrolling, instead of answering it. Then make sure you’ve removed these obstacles.

Remember, people are busy and have all kinds of decisions and thinking to do in their day.

Even an extra ten seconds of unnecessary creative thinking that might be needed, is enough for them to skip answering your question.

Include visuals

People always prefer to see, rather than read.

If your problem is complicated, use images. A simple MsPaint image goes a long way. If your problem is about code, include it, even if you need to write a very basic version.

A lot of the time one image can describe whole paragraphs of text. Maybe not better than text, but you certainly reduce the resistance someone might have when they want to help you.

Never forget to give context

Writing a wall of text and not including the context, not giving the general picture around the problem, is enough to make it impossible for others to help you.

Context is the most easy part to forget, because you’ve possibly spent hours trying to solve the problem, so you have a very focused perspective. But others don’t necessarily share that perspective.

Include general information like kind of tech used, file structure, environment.

Always state what you really want, and why

Most of the time you want to ask for help because you’re having a very specific problem. You have to work on a project, and you’re at a point where you have decided to do it in a specific way, but something is not working as it should.

But what if there are other, very different approaches? What if you’ve been so focused on a specific solution, that you couldn’t see other possibilities?

Stating what you REALLY need, what the ultimate purpose is, helps others indicate different paths that could be much better alternatives.

Use correct wording

One of the most basic parts of communicating technology is using the correct definitions. Different words have different meanings, and can mislead those who answer your question.

If a word is specific to the area, look it up first, before using it.

Try not to make assumptions

A lot of times, beginners make assumptions about how things work. Reading from the wrong sources, not remembering things well, filling gaps in knowledge with guesses, can prevent you from being accurate when you’re asking for help.

If you’re not sure about how something works, say it. If you have a possible gap in your knowledge about a technology, just say that you assume it works in a specific way. This allows others to correct you.

Conclusion

The truth is, people are nice and like to help. The Internet is full of examples of this (think about how life without Stack Overflow would be).

If you follow these tips, you’ll avoid getting in their way of doing so.

Thanks for reading!