Critique of request for help, please?
I've read several FAQ-type documents that detail the best way to ask for help on usenet, mailing lists, and the like. Yet I still seem to do a poor job of describing issues I encounter. So I'm going to link a request for help I made and ask for specifically what I've missed, so that in the future perhaps I can make my questions more friendly to those that might be able to answer them. http://drupal.org/node/387900 My guess is that there are four possible reasons that I haven't received a response. They are (in decreasing order of likelihood): 1) I have provided incomplete information. 2) The question's answer is so obvious that no one bothers to answer it 3) The question is difficult enough that no one can answer it 4) No one ever looks at the Location Views issue queue There's really nothing I can do about possibilities #3 and #4. If #2 is correct then perhaps a new career path is in order. So I'm hoping that I am woefully inept at asking for help. I have included a clear example of the problem, a link to a description of a similar problem (and the patch I applied), descriptions of the ways I've tried to work around the problem, and why those methods failed. Please tell me: what can I do differently to get a better chance of a response? Thank you, Steve
From personal experience, I have found that this support list is a far better place to ask questions than creating issues on the drupal.org site. You are far more likely to get a very helpful response here. I experienced the same thing of no responses at all to issues I created on the drupal.orgsite, while I received rapid, friendly, and helpful answers here.
Best of luck. On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 4:02 AM, Steven Scotten <steves@splicer.com> wrote:
I've read several FAQ-type documents that detail the best way to ask for help on usenet, mailing lists, and the like. Yet I still seem to do a poor job of describing issues I encounter. So I'm going to link a request for help I made and ask for specifically what I've missed, so that in the future perhaps I can make my questions more friendly to those that might be able to answer them.
My guess is that there are four possible reasons that I haven't received a response. They are (in decreasing order of likelihood):
1) I have provided incomplete information. 2) The question's answer is so obvious that no one bothers to answer it 3) The question is difficult enough that no one can answer it 4) No one ever looks at the Location Views issue queue
There's really nothing I can do about possibilities #3 and #4. If #2 is correct then perhaps a new career path is in order. So I'm hoping that I am woefully inept at asking for help.
I have included a clear example of the problem, a link to a description of a similar problem (and the patch I applied), descriptions of the ways I've tried to work around the problem, and why those methods failed.
Please tell me: what can I do differently to get a better chance of a response?
Thank you,
Steve -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
Quoting Steven Scotten <steves@splicer.com>:
Please tell me: what can I do differently to get a better chance of a response?
Often times it is a matter of time for the maintainer. Sometimes the maintainer may no longer receive the requests in his mailbox. I can't say that you have done anything wrong. The maintainer of the Location Views project will need to speak up. Looking at the project page and the issue queue for location I suggest that perhaps you possibly should have asked in the project/issues/location queue instead. But I'm reading between the lines based on experience. -- Earnie -- http://r-feed.com/ -- http://for-my-kids.com/ -- http://www.4offer.biz/ -- http://give-me-an-offer.com/
participants (4)
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David Uctaa -
Earnie Boyd -
Fred Jones -
Steven Scotten