Diary of an Answerer
My best advice for asking questions would be to play on the psychology of the people who answer questions. Being one of those people, I can give insight into why I answer certain questions and why I don't answer others.
Motivations
I'm motivated to answer questions for several reasons
- Stackoverflow.com has been a tremendously valuable resource to me. I wanted to give back.
- In my efforts to give back, I've found this site to be an even more powerful resource than before. Answering questions is a learning experience for me and I like to learn. Read this answer and comment from another vet. This kind of interaction makes me happy.
- I like points!
- See #3.
- I like interesting problems.
All my purest intentions are great and all, but I get that satisfaction if I answer 1 question or 30. What drives my choices for which questions to answer has a huge component of point maximization.
I'll also spend time on interesting problems but that is few and far between and doesn't help an asker who needs a solution to a non-interesting question. Your best bet to get me to answer a question is to serve that question up on a platter ripe for me to answer it with as little effort as possible. If I'm looking at two questions and one has code I can copy paste to create all the variables I need... I'm taking that one! I'll come back to the other one if I have time, maybe.
Main Advice
Make it easy for the people answering questions.
- Provide code that creates variables that are needed.
- Minimize that code. If my eyes glaze over as I look at the post, I'm on to the next question or getting back to whatever else I'm doing.
- Think about what your asking and be specific. We want to see what you've done because natural languages (English) are inexact and confusing. Code samples of what you've tried help resolve inconsistencies in a natural language description.
- PLEASE show what you expect!!! I have to sit down and try things. I almost never know the answer to a question without trying some things out. If I don't see an example of what you're looking for, I might pass on the question because I don't feel like guessing.
Your reputation is more than just your reputation.
I like points (I mentioned that above). But those points aren't really really my reputation. My real reputation is an amalgamation of what others on the site think of me. I strive to be fair and honest and I hope others can see that. What that means for an asker is, we remember the behaviors of askers. If you don't select answers and upvote good answers, I remember. If you behave in ways I don't like or in ways I do like, I remember. This also plays into which questions I'll answer.
Anyway, I can probably go on, but I'll spare all of you who actually read this.
