Comment by nnoitra | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nnoitra | Hacker News Reader

My experience has been diametrically opposite to this. I've found Stack Exchange communities to be amazing communities to ask deep questions, practice technical writing and even exercise critical thinking skills.

On the Math Exchange I've had nothing but positive experience. The thing to do is first to struggle a bit with the problem and formulate a good question. Asking good question is an incredibly valuable skill. The questions which get treated bad are usually either poorly written and/or the person asking it clearly didn't even spend the bare minimum trying to solve it.

Here are some tips to get your questions answered and upvoted:

1) Spend some time on the problem

2) Describe what you've tried and why according to you that doesn't work or you don't understand it

3) Write in clear language and don't make obvious grammar mistakes

> The questions which get treated bad are usually either poorly written and/or the person asking it clearly didn't even spend the bare minimum trying to solve it.

My thoughts on what usually happens when someones says how bad questions are treated on SO/SE. For reference here's the question referred in the document: https://math.stackexchange.com/q/1464844. Notice how the answer mentioned isn't actually an answer but a comment or, to be precise, a clarifying question since the asked question wasn't specific at all.

While i agree that asking good questions is important you've laid out 3 criteria impossible for most people to achieve. Do work, be thorough and communicate clearly.

So many people I run into cannot even identify keywords for a good web search much less formulate questions and the context needed to get the answers they need.

It's hardly impossible. It's just a skill that takes practice. much like math itself.

I only say it's impossible in the sense that even the modicum of effort required seema to be beyond the tolerance of moat people today.

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