While reading Eric Raymond’s essay, How to Ask Questions the Smart Way, I couldn’t help but compare how hackers choose to answer questions to how owners train dogs. Dog owners will reward good behavior, but will punish bad behavior in order to establish good habits for dogs. This is done so that eventually the dog will be able to perform well by itself without the need of constant supervision. Experienced hackers will ignore and possibly flame those who ask stupid questions, while smart questions are rewarded with their answers and time. I believe that this is a tough love way of getting people to think for themselves and put actual thought and effort into what they are doing.
To me this post has many elements of a smart question. The title explains the problem he is having without adding anything unnecessary. He gives multiple examples for the problem that he is running into. He has also posted on another forum for answers. Most importantly he lists down things that he has tried before reaching out to the community for answers. This demonstrates a willingness to learn that hackers might find worth their time. He is rewarded with an answer from someone that seems to understand the problem fairly well. The answerer provides links to different resources and suggests multiple possible solutions to the problem.
The problem with this question was that it was too basic. The poster did not take the time to research the problem. Many commenter replied saying that the problem could have been solved with a google search or many easily accessed videos on youtube.
This question was put on hold due to being off topic with too little information on the subject. The header and body didn’t give a clear understanding of the problem at hand. This poster either didn’t understand the problem himself or didn’t know how to properly convey it to others.
I thought that this question was the worst of all the ones I found on StackOverflow. The header “Why i am getting error” doesn’t even try to give details about the problem the person is having. Then we get to the body and it is immediately apparent that this is an homework question. People don’t want to do other people’s homework. No one has time for that. Also there was an emoticon somewhere in the body.
None of the stupid questions were really answered with any real answer. They were either ignored, reported, or replied to with STFW (Search the Fucking Web). The smart question on the other hand was replied to by people who seemed interested in the problem and were willing to give up their time to help find a solution. To me this shows that hackers really do want cultivate a better community by rewarding those that will think for themselves and have the desire to learn and punishing or ignoring those that do not.