If They Can Get You Asking The Wrong Questions …

Writing “smart” questions is important not only in the online world, but also in the “real” world, even though the two are practically the same these days. Properly formulating your query so that it’s concise, specific, and well formulated is the best way to get you the type of reply that you’re looking for –one that is detailed, accurate and filled with the appropriate information that you’re looking for. It’s not just that other users on web forums will respect a well voiced question, you’ll also get the same type of respect and response in the professional world. This exercise is intended to do just that, which is to prepare you to interact with other professionals so that when you do put forth a question about any sort of technical issue you might be having, those who are receiving/reviewing your question know that you’ve done your research first. This can also help a certain amount of respect for you both in the online communities and the real world ones. It’s not just a classroom exercise, but a life skill that you’re developing.

Upon searching through Stack Overflow for examples of both “smart” and “not smart” questions, I came upon two examples. This first one is what I assessed to be a smart question. Although I’m not exactly sure what it is the individual is asking, the formulation of his query is very specific and detailed, not just in the subject line, but also in the body of his post where he lists a snippet of code, along with other specifics that can help readers with his issue. His subject header is meaningful, the content is well written, concise, and grammatically correct, and his post is informative, and he also lists the specifics of the problem he’s encountered. How did this help the poster? Well, click on the link below and see the amount of upvotes and responses he received. It’s a lot, and while I don’t understand exactly what the response codes translate into, I can clearly see that the community was willing and eager to provide support for him. That, in my eyes, is what a smart question should look like!
Take a look here: How to pass “Null” (a real surname!) to a SOAP web service in ActionScript 3

For the second question, I searched for what would be considered a “not smart” question, and I found quite a few actually. Feel free to visit the question first, if you like, but I’ll summarize it, along with my comments on why I think it’s bad.
The link is here: I am trying to figure out below Javascript and what it does

Let’s start with the subject line. It’s a terribly formulated question, followed my incorrect grammar in the subject line itself. It’s quite possible that English isn’t the poster’s first language, so we’ll excuse him or her for that, but then you get into body of the post, you can easily see that the person who posted it didn’t really bother doing any research. The question could easily have been googled or searched for on the forum, with a little though on how to formulate a search for the specific answer this person was looking for. Also, is it really a problem that needs the help of a forum to get answers on? Not really. As many responders were quick to point out, the OP could have, and should have, looked in the documentation first before making a post on Stack Overflow. The responses, even the helpful ones, were a bit snarky and they deserved to be so. I myself had a similar question about how console.log worked at the beginning of the semester, but all it took was about 15 seconds of thought and a quick google search to confirm how it functioned. The question was neither thought provoking nor useful to the community as a whole. It was pointless even reading it, but I applaud the few who took the time to help this individual out.