As a budding software engineer, learning to ask questions the right way is an extremely important skill to know. Any programmer will tell you resources such as Google and Stack Overflow are invaluable tools for learning and problem solving during projects. The two often go hand in hand if the programmer is smart and does his own research before resorting to asking questions. If however, the programmer does not take time, he may end up wasting both his and others time.
In this Stack Overflow question the user uses a clear and concise header to start the question, just using the error message he received from trying his program he posts “Warning: ISO C++ forbids converting a string constant to ‘char*’ for a static constexpr char* data member”. Then, in asking the question, he includes a reference he found from cppreference.com which he questions why his code does not work if the reference is true. He also includes snippets of his code and what he’s tried to resolve it, saying, “If I add a const after constexpr, the warning is gone:”. Finally, he asks the main point of his question, “Does the constexpr not imply const on static data members?”. This user shows in practice how to ask a smart question, using a smart header, showing the research he’s done prior to asking and finishing with a concise final question. In response the user gets 26 upvotes and well thought out responses.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53531125/asterisk-broadcasting
On the other hand, this Stack Overflow user titles his post just as “Asterisk Broadcasting”. Using just this two word phrase is a good way to get other users to ignore your post. Compared to the ‘smart’ post, this post gives nearly no information of what the poster is doing or trying to accomplish. Within the post, the user adds irrelevant text and information such as, “I love studying new things.” The user shows no evidence that he has done his own outside research. In response the user gets 2 downvotes and a relatively short response which tells him what he is trying is not possible. The user actually updates his post and describes how to achieve his goal, which goes to show with research of his own he could have achieved his goal without posting.
In conclusion, the users who actively answer questions on these web forums are generally very helpful and kind. However, giving these users proper information to work with is important as it affects the information one receives. In these two examples I do not believe the quality of the responses to be radically different. I do believe the second user would have greatly benefited if he had made a more clear title and did more research before posting.