Eric Steven Raymond
Thyrsus Enterprises
<esr@thyrsus.com>
Rick Moen
<respond-auto@linuxmafia.com>
Copyright © 2001,2006 Eric S. Raymond, Rick Moen
Revision History
Revision 3.6
19 Mar 2008
esr
Minor update and new links.
Revision 3.5
2 Jan 2008
esr
Typo fix and some translation links.
Revision 3.4
24 Mar 2007
esr
New section, "When asking about code".
Revision 3.3
29 Sep 2006
esr
Folded in a good suggestion from Kai Niggemann.
Revision 3.2
10 Jan 2006
esr
Folded in edits from Rick Moen.
Revision 3.1
28 Oct 2004
esr
Document 'Google is your friend!'
Revision 3.0
2 Feb 2004
esr
Major addition of stuff about proper etiquette on Web forums.
Table of Contents
Translations
Disclaimer
Introduction
Before You Ask
When You Ask
Choose your forum carefully
Web and IRC forums directed towards newbies often give the quickest response
As a second step, use project mailing lists
Use meaningful, specific subject headers
Make it easy to reply
Write in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled language
Send questions in accessible, standard formats
Be precise and informative about your problem
Volume is not precision
Don't claim that you have found a bug
Grovelling is not a substitute for doing your homework
Describe the problem's symptoms, not your guesses
Describe your problem's symptoms in chronological order
Describe the goal, not the step
Don't ask people to reply by private e-mail
Be explicit about your question
When asking about code
Don't post homework questions
Prune pointless queries
Don't flag your question as “Urgent”, even if it is for you
Courtesy never hurts, and sometimes helps
Follow up with a brief note on the solution
How To Interpret Answers
RTFM and STFW: How To Tell You've Seriously Screwed Up
If you don't understand...
Dealing with rudeness
On Not Reacting Like A Loser
Questions Not To Ask
Good and Bad Questions
If You Can't Get An Answer
How To Answer Questions in a Helpful Way
Related Resources
Acknowledgements
Translations
Translations: Bahasa Indonesian Brazilo-Portuguese Chinese Czech Danish Dutch Estonian Finnish French Georgian German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Italian Japanese Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Spanish Swedish Thai Turkish. If you want to copy, mirror, translate, or excerpt this document, please see my copying policy.
Disclaimer
Many project websites link to this document in their sections on how to get help. That's fine, it's the use we intended — but if you are a webmaster creating such a link for your project page, please display prominently near the link notice that we are not a help desk for your project!
We have learned the hard way that without such a notice, we will repeatedly be pestered by idiots who think having published this document makes it our job to solve all the world's technical problems.
If you're reading this document because you need help, and you walk away with the impression you can get it directly from the authors of this document, you are one of the idiots in question. Don't ask us questions. We'll just ignore you. We are here to show you how to get help from people who actually know about the software or hardware you're dealing with, but 99.9% of the time that will not be us. Unless you know for certain that one of the authors is an expert on what you're dealing with, leave us alone and everybody will be happier.
Introduction
In the world of hackers, the kind of answers you get to your technical questions depends as much on the way you ask the questions as on the difficulty of developing the answer. This guide will teach you how to ask questions in a way more likely to get you a satisfactory answer.
Now that use of open source has become widespread, you can often get as good answers from other, more experienced users as from hackers. This is a Good Thing; users tend to be just a little bit more tolerant of the kind of failures newbies often have. Still, treating experienced users like hackers in the ways we recommend here will generally be the most effective way to get useful answers out of them, too.
The first thing to understand is that hackers actually like hard problems and good, thought-provoking questions about them. If we didn't, we wouldn't be here. If you give us an interesting question to chew on we'll be grateful to you; good questions are a stimulus and a gift. Good questions help us develop our understanding, and often reveal problems we might not have noticed or thought about otherwise. Among hackers, “Good question!” is a strong and sincere compliment.
Despite this, hackers have a reputation for meeting simple questions with what looks like hostility or arrogance. It sometimes looks like we're reflexively rude to newbies and the ignorant. But this isn't really true.
What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions. People like that are time sinks — they take without giving back, and they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer. We call people like this “losers” (and for historical reasons we sometimes spell it “lusers”).
We realize that there are many people who just want to use the software we write, and who have no interest in learning technical details. For most people, a computer is merely a tool, a means to an end; they have more important things to do and lives to live. We acknowledge that, and don't expect everyone to take an interest in the technical matters that fascinate us. Nevertheless, our style of answering questions is tuned for people who do take such an interest and are willing to be active participants in problem-solving. That's not going to change. Nor should it; if it did, we would become less effective at the things we do best.
We're (largely) volunteers. We take time out of busy lives to answer questions, and at times we're overwhelmed with them. So we filter ruthlessly. In particular, we throw away questions from people who appear to be losers in order to spend our question-answering time more efficiently, on winners.
If you find this attitude obnoxious, condescending, or arrogant, check your assumptions. We're not asking you to genuflect to us — in fact, most of us would love nothing more than to deal with you as an equal and welcome you into our culture, if you put in the effort required to make that possible. But it's simply not efficient for us to try to help people who are not willing to help themselves. It's OK to be ignorant; it's not OK to play stupid.
So, while it isn't necessary to already be technically competent to get attention from us, it is necessary to demonstrate the kind of attitude that leads to competence — alert, thoughtful, observant, willing to be an active partner in developing a solution. If you can't live with this sort of discrimination, we suggest you pay somebody for a commercial support contract instead of asking hackers to personally donate help to you.
If you decide to come to us for help, you don't want to be one of the losers. You don't want to seem like one, either. The best way to get a rapid and responsive answer is to ask it like a person with smarts, confidence, and clues who just happens to need help on one particular problem.
(Improvements to this guide are welcome. You can mail suggestions to esr@thyrsus.com or http://203.208.33.101/respond-auto@linuxmafia.com. Note however that this document is not intended to be a general guide to netiquette, and we will generally reject suggestions that are not specifically related to eliciting useful answers in a technical forum.)
Before You Ask
Before asking a technical question by e-mail, or in a newsgroup, or on a website chat board, do the following:
Try to find an answer by searching the archives of the forum you plan to post to.
Try to find an answer by searching the Web.
Try to find an answer by reading the manual.
Try to find an answer by reading a FAQ.
Try to find an answer by inspection or experimentation.
Try to find an answer by asking a skilled friend.
If you're a programmer, try to find an answer by reading the source code.
When you ask your question, display the fact that you have done these things first; this will help establish that you're not being a lazy sponge and wasting people's time. Better yet, display what you have learned from doing these things. We like answering questions for people who have demonstrated they can learn from the answers.
Use tactics like doing a Google search on the text of whatever error message you get (searching Google groups as well as Web pages). This might well take you straight to fix documentation or a mailing list thread answering your question. Even if it doesn't, saying “I googled on the following phrase but didn't get anything that looked promising” is a good thing to do in e-mail or news postings requesting help, if only because it records what searches won't help. It will also help to direct other people with similar problems to your thread by linking the search terms to what will hopefully be your problem and resolution thread.
Take your time. Do not expect to be able to solve a complicated problem with a few seconds of Googling. Read and understand the FAQs, sit back, relax and give the problem some thought before approaching experts. Trust us, they will be able to tell from your questions how much reading and thinking you did, and will be more willing to help if you come prepared. Don't instantly fire your whole arsenal of questions just because your first search turned up no answers (or too many).
Prepare your question. Think it through. Hasty-sounding questions get hasty answers, or none at all. The more you do to demonstrate that having put thought and effort into solving your problem before seeking help, the more likely you are to actually get help.
Beware of asking the wrong question. If you ask one that is based on faulty assumptions, J. Random Hacker is quite likely to reply with a uselessly literal answer while thinking “Stupid question...”, and hoping the experience of getting what you asked for rather than what you needed will teach you a lesson.
Never assume you are entitled to an answer. You are not; you aren't, after all, paying for the service. You will earn an answer, if you earn it, by asking a substantial, interesting, and thought-provoking question — one that implicitly contributes to the experience of the community rather than merely passively demanding knowledge from others.
On the other hand, making it clear that you are able and willing to help in the process of developing the solution is a very good start. “Would someone provide a pointer?”, “What is my example missing?”, and “What site should I have checked?” are more likely to get answered than “Please post the exact procedure I should use.” because you're making it clear that you're truly willing to complete the process if someone can just point you in the right direction.
When You Ask
Choose your forum carefully
Be sensitive in choosing where you ask your question. You are likely to be ignored, or written off as a loser, if you:
post your question to a forum where it's off topic
post a very elementary question to a forum where advanced technical questions are expected, or vice-versa
cross-post to too many different newsgroups
post a personal e-mail to somebody who is neither an acquaintance of yours nor personally responsible for solving your problem
Hackers blow off questions that are inappropriately targeted in order to try to protect their communications channels from being drowned in irrelevance. You don't want this to happen to you.
The first step, therefore, is to find the right forum. Again, Google and other Web-searching methods are your friend. Use them to find the project webpage most closely associated with the hardware or software giving you difficulties. Usually it will have links to a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list, and to project mailing lists and their archives. These mailing lists are the final places to go for help, if your own efforts (including reading those FAQs you found) do not find you a solution. The project page may also describe a bug-reporting procedure, or have a link to one; if so, follow it.
Shooting off an e-mail to a person or forum which you are not familiar with is risky at best. For example, do not assume that the author of an informative webpage wants to be your free consultant. Do not make optimistic guesses about whether your question will be welcome — if you're unsure, send it elsewhere, or refrain from sending it at all.
When selecting a Web forum, newsgroup or mailing list, don't trust the name by itself too far; look for a FAQ or charter to verify your question is on-topic. Read some of the back traffic before posting so you'll get a feel for how things are done there. In fact, it's a very good idea to do a keyword search for words relating to your problem on the newsgroup or mailing list archives before you post. It may find you an answer, and if not it will help you formulate a better question.
Don't shotgun-blast all the available help channels at once, that's like yelling and irritates people. Step through them softly.
Know what your topic is! One of the classic mistakes is asking questions about the Unix or Windows programming interface in a forum devoted to a language or library or tool portable across both. If you don't understand why this is a blunder, you'd be best off not asking any questions at all until you get it.
In general, questions to a well-selected public forum are more likely to get useful answers than equivalent questions to a private one. There are multiple reasons for this. One is simply the size of the pool of potential respondents. Another is the size of the audience; hackers would rather answer questions that educate many people than questions serving only a few.
Understandably, skilled hackers and authors of popular software are already receiving more than their fair share of mis-targeted messages. By adding to the flood, you could in extreme cases even be the straw that breaks the camel's back — quite a few times, contributors to popular projects have withdrawn their support because collateral damage in the form of useless e-mail traffic to their personal accounts became unbearable.
Web and IRC forums directed towards newbies often give the quickest response
Your local user group, or your Linux distribution, may advertise a Web forum or IRC channel where newbies can get help. (In non-English-speaking countries newbie forums are still more likely to be mailing lists.) These are good first places to ask, especially if you think you may have tripped over a relatively simple or common problem. An advertised IRC channel is an open invitation to ask questions there and often get answers in real time.
In fact, if you got the program that is giving you problems from a Linux distribution (as common today), it may be better to ask in the distro's forum/list before trying the program's project forum/list. The project's hackers may just say, “use our build”.
Before posting to any Web forum, check if it has a Search feature. If it does, try a couple of keyword searches for something like your problem; it just might help. If you did a general Web search before (as you should have), search the forum anyway; your Web-wide search engine might not have all of this forum indexed recently.
There is an increasing tendency for projects to do user support over a Web forum or IRC channel, with e-mail reserved more for development traffic. So look for those channels first when seeking project-specific help.
As a second step, use project mailing lists
When a project has a development mailing list, write to the mailing list, not to individual developers, even if you believe you know who can best answer your question. Check the documentation of the project and its homepage for the address of a project mailing list, and use it. There are several good reasons for this policy:
Any question good enough to be asked of one developer will also be of value to the whole group. Contrariwise, if you suspect your question is too dumb for a mailing list, it's not an excuse to harass individual developers.
Asking questions on the list distributes load among developers. The individual developer (especially if he's the project leader) may be too busy to answer your questions.
Most mailing lists are archived and the archives are indexed by search engines. If you ask your question on-list and it is answered, a future querent could find your question and the answer on the Web instead of asking it again.
If certain questions are seen to be asked often, developers can use that information to improve the documentation or the software itself to be less confusing. But if those questions are asked in private, nobody has the complete picture of what questions are asked most often.
If a project has both a “user” and a “developer” (or “hacker”) mailing list or Web forum, and you are not hacking on the code, ask in the “user” list/forum. Do not assume that you will be welcome on the developer list, where they're likely to experience your question as noise disrupting their developer traffic.
However, if you are sure your question is non-trivial, and you get no answer in the “user” list/forum for several days, try the “developer” one. You would be well advised to lurk there for a few days before posting to learn the local folkways (actually this is good advice on any private or semi-private list).
If you cannot find a project's mailing list address, but only see the address of the maintainer of the project, go ahead and write to the maintainer. But even in that case, don't assume that the mailing list doesn't exist. Mention in your e-mail that you tried and could not find the appropriate mailing list. Also mention that you don't object to having your message forwarded to other people. (Many people believe that private e-mail should remain private, even if there is nothing secret in it. By allowing your message to be forwarded you give your correspondent a choice about how to handle your e-mail.)
Use meaningful, specific subject headers
On mailing lists, newsgroups or Web forums, the subject header is your golden opportunity to attract qualified experts' attention in around 50 characters or fewer. Don't waste it on babble like “Please help me” (let alone “PLEASE HELP ME!!!!”; messages with subjects like that get discarded by reflex). Don't try to impress us with the depth of your anguish; use the space for a super-concise problem description instead.
One good convention for subject headers, used by many tech support organizations, is “object - deviation”. The “object” part specifies what thing or group of things is having a problem, and the “deviation” part describes the deviation from expected behavior.
Stupid:
HELP! Video doesn't work properly on my laptop!
Smart:
X.org 6.8.1 misshapen mouse cursor, Fooware MV1005 vid. chipset
Smarter:
X.org 6.8.1 mouse cursor on Fooware MV1005 vid. chipset - is misshapen
The process of writing an “object-deviation” description will help you organize your thinking about the problem in more detail. What is affected? Just the mouse cursor or other graphics too? Is this specific to the X.org version of X? To version 6.8.1? Is this specific to Fooware video chipsets? To model MV1005? A hacker who sees the result can immediately understand what it is that you are having a problem with and the problem you are having, at a glance.
More generally, imagine looking at the index of an archive of questions, with just the subject lines showing. Make your subject line reflect your question well enough that the next guy searching the archive with a question similar to yours will be able to follow the thread to an answer rather than posting the question again.
If you ask a question in a reply, be sure to change the subject line to indicate that you're asking a question. A Subject line that looks like “Re: test” or “Re: new bug” is less likely to attract useful amounts of attention. Also, pare quotation of previous messages to the minimum consistent with cluing in new readers.
Do not simply hit reply to a list message in order to start an entirely new thread. This will limit your audience. Some mail readers, like mutt, allow the user to sort by thread and then hide messages in a thread by folding the thread. Folks who do that will never see your message.
Changing the subject is not sufficient. Mutt, and probably other mail readers, looks at other information in the e-mail's headers to assign it to a thread, not the subject line. Instead start an entirely new e-mail.
On Web forums the rules of good practice are slightly different, because messages are usually much more tightly bound to specific discussion threads and often invisible outside those threads. Changing the subject when asking a question in reply is not essential. Not all forums even allow separate subject lines on replies, and nearly nobody reads them when they do. However, asking a question in a reply is a dubious practice in itself, because it will only be seen by those who are watching this thread. So, unless you are sure you want to ask only the people currently active in the thread, start a new one.
Make it easy to reply
Finishing your query with “Please send your reply to... ” makes it quite unlikely you will get an answer. If you can't be bothered to take even the few seconds required to set up a correct Reply-To header in your mail agent, we can't be bothered to take even a few seconds to think about your problem. If your mail program doesn't permit this, get a better mail program. If your operating system doesn't support any e-mail programs that permit this, get a better operating system.
In Web forums, asking for a reply by e-mail is outright rude, unless you believe the information may be sensitive (and somebody will, for some unknown reason, let you but not the whole forum know it). If you want an e-mail copy when somebody replies in the thread, request that the Web forum send it; this feature is supported almost everywhere under options like “watch this thread”, “send e-mail on answers”, etc.
Write in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled language
We've found by experience that people who are careless and sloppy writers are usually also careless and sloppy at thinking and coding (often enough to bet on, anyway). Answering questions for careless and sloppy thinkers is not rewarding; we'd rather spend our time elsewhere.
So expressing your question clearly and well is important. If you can't be bothered to do that, we can't be bothered to pay attention. Spend the extra effort to polish your language. It doesn't have to be stiff or formal — in fact, hacker culture values informal, slangy and humorous language used with precision. But it has to be precise; there has to be some indication that you're thinking and paying attention.
Spell, punctuate, and capitalize correctly. Don't confuse “its” with “it's”, “loose” with “lose”, or “discrete” with “discreet”. Don't TYPE IN ALL CAPS; this is read as shouting and considered rude. (All-smalls is only slightly less annoying, as it's difficult to read. Alan Cox can get away with it, but you can't.)
More generally, if you write like a semi-literate boob you will very likely be ignored. So don't use instant-messaging shortcuts. Spelling "you" as "u" makes you look like a semi-literate boob to save two entire keystrokes. Worse: writing like a l33t script kiddie hax0r is the absolute kiss of death and guarantees you will receive nothing but stony silence (or, at best, a heaping helping of scorn and sarcasm) in return.
If you are asking questions in a forum that does not use your native language, you will get a limited amount of slack for spelling and grammar errors — but no extra slack at all for laziness (and yes, we can usually spot that difference). Also, unless you know what your respondent's languages are, write in English. Busy hackers tend to simply flush questions in languages they don't understand, and English is the working language of the Internet. By writing in English you minimize your chances that your question will be discarded unread.
Send questions in accessible, standard formats
If you make your question artificially hard to read, it is more likely to be passed over in favor of one that isn't. So:
Send plain text mail, not HTML. (It's not hard to turn off HTML.)
MIME attachments are usually OK, but only if they are real content (such as an attached source file or patch), and not merely boilerplate generated by your mail client (such as another copy of your message).
Don't send e-mail in which entire paragraphs are single multiply-wrapped lines. (This makes it too difficult to reply to just part of the message.) Assume that your respondents will be reading mail on 80-character-wide text displays and set your line wrap accordingly, to something less than 80.
However, do not wrap data (such as log file dumps or session transcripts) at any fixed column width. Data should be included as-is, so respondents can have confidence that they are seeing what you saw.
Don't send MIME Quoted-Printable encoding to an English-language forum. This encoding can be necessary when you're posting in a language ASCII doesn't cover, but many e-mail agents don't support it. When they break, all those =20 glyphs scattered through the text are ugly and distracting — or may actively sabotage the semantics of your text.
Never, ever expect hackers to be able to read closed proprietary document formats like Microsoft Word or Excel. Most hackers react to these about as well as you would to having a pile of steaming pig manure dumped on your doorstep. Even when they can cope, they resent having to do so.
If you're sending e-mail from a Windows machine, turn off Microsoft's stupid “Smart Quotes” feature. This is so you'll avoid sprinkling garbage characters through your mail.
In Web forums, do not abuse “smiley” and “HTML” features (when they are present). A smiley or two is usually OK, but colored fancy text tends to make people think you are lame. Seriously overusing smileys and color and fonts will make you come off like a giggly teenage girl, which is not generally a good idea unless you are more interested in sex than answers.
If you're using a graphical-user-interface mail client such as Netscape Messenger, MS Outlook, or their ilk, beware that it may violate these rules when used with its default settings. Most such clients have a menu-based “View Source” command. Use this on something in your sent-mail folder, verifying sending of plain text without unnecessary attached crud.
Be precise and informative about your problem
Describe the symptoms of your problem or bug carefully and clearly.
Describe the environment in which it occurs (machine, OS, application, whatever). Provide your vendor's distribution and release level (e.g.: “Fedora Core 7”, “Slackware 9.1”, etc.).
Describe the research you did to try and understand the problem before you asked the question.
Describe the diagnostic steps you took to try and pin down the problem yourself before you asked the question.
Describe any possibly relevant recent changes in your computer or software configuration.
Do the best you can to anticipate the questions a hacker will ask, and answer them in advance in your request for help.
Simon Tatham has written an excellent essay entitled How to Report Bugs Effectively. I strongly recommend that you read it.
Volume is not precision
You need to be precise and informative. This end is not served by simply dumping huge volumes of code or data into a help request. If you have a large, complicated test case that is breaking a program, try to trim it and make it as small as possible.
This is useful for at least three reasons. One: being seen to invest effort in simplifying the question makes it more likely you'll get an answer, Two: simplifying the question makes it more likely you'll get a useful answer. Three: In the process of refining your bug report, you may develop a fix or workaround yourself.
Don't claim that you have found a bug
When you are having problems with a piece of software, don't claim you have found a bug unless you are very, very sure of your ground. Hint: unless you can provide a source-code patch that fixes the problem, or a regression test against a previous version that demonstrates incorrect behavior, you are probably not sure enough. This applies to webpages and documentation, too; if you have found a documentation “bug”, you should supply replacement text and which pages it should go on.
Remember, there are many other users that are not experiencing your problem. Otherwise you would have learned about it while reading the documentation and searching the Web (you did do that before complaining, didn't you?). This means that very probably it is you who are doing something wrong, not the software.
The people who wrote the software work very hard to make it work as well as possible. If you claim you have found a bug, you'll be impugning their competence, which may offend some of them even if you are correct. It's especially undiplomatic to yell “bug” in the Subject line.
When asking your question, it is best to write as though you assume you are doing something wrong, even if you are privately pretty sure you have found an actual bug. If there really is a bug, you will hear about it in the answer. Play it so the maintainers will want to apologize to you if the bug is real, rather than so that you will owe them an apology if you have messed up.
Grovelling is not a substitute for doing your homework
Some people who get that they shouldn't behave rudely or arrogantly, demanding an answer, retreat to the opposite extreme of grovelling. “I know I'm just a pathetic newbie loser, but...”. This is distracting and unhelpful. It's especially annoying when it's coupled with vagueness about the actual problem.
Don't waste your time, or ours, on crude primate politics. Instead, present the background facts and your question as clearly as you can. That is a better way to position yourself than by grovelling.
Sometimes Web forums have separate places for newbie questions. If you feel you do have a newbie question, just go there. But don't grovel there either.
Describe the problem's symptoms, not your guesses
It's not useful to tell hackers what you think is causing your problem. (If your diagnostic theories were such hot stuff, would you be consulting others for help?) So, make sure you're telling them the raw symptoms of what goes wrong, rather than your interpretations and theories. Let them do the interpretation and diagnosis. If you feel it's important to state your guess, clearly label it as such and describe why that answer isn't working for you.
Stupid:
I'm getting back-to-back SIG11 errors on kernel compiles, and suspect a hairline crack on one of the motherboard traces. What's the best way to check for those?
Smart:
My home-built K6/233 on an FIC-PA2007 motherboard (VIA Apollo VP2 chipset) with 256MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM starts getting frequent SIG11 errors about 20 minutes after power-on during the course of kernel compiles, but never in the first 20 minutes. Rebooting doesn't restart the clock, but powering down overnight does. Swapping out all RAM didn't help. The relevant part of a typical compile session log follows.
Since the preceding point seems to be a tough one for many people to grasp, here's a phrase to remind you: "All diagnosticians are from Missouri." That US state's official motto is "Show me" (earned in 1899, when Congressman Willard D. Vandiver said "I come from a country that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri. You've got to show me.") In diagnosticians' case, it's not a matter of skepticism, but rather a literal, functional need to see whatever is as close as possible to the same raw evidence that you see, rather than your surmises and summaries. Show us.
Describe your problem's symptoms in chronological order
The clues most useful in figuring out something that went wrong often lie in the events immediately prior. So, your account should describe precisely what you did, and what the machine and software did, leading up to the blowup. In the case of command-line processes, having a session log (e.g., using the script utility) and quoting the relevant twenty or so lines is very useful.
If the program that blew up on you has diagnostic options (such as -v for verbose), try to select options that will add useful debugging information to the transcript. Remember that more is not necessarily better; try to choose a debug level that will inform rather than drowning the reader in junk.
If your account ends up being long (more than about four paragraphs), it might be useful to succinctly state the problem up top, then follow with the chronological tale. That way, hackers will know what to watch for in reading your account.
Describe the goal, not the step
If you are trying to find out how to do something (as opposed to reporting a bug), begin by describing the goal. Only then describe the particular step towards it that you are blocked on.
Often, people who need technical help have a high-level goal in mind and get stuck on what they think is one particular path towards the goal. They come for help with the step, but don't realize that the path is wrong. It can take substantial effort to get past this.
Stupid:
How do I get the color-picker on the FooDraw program to take a hexadecimal RGB value?
Smart:
I'm trying to replace the color table on an image with values of my choosing. Right now the only way I can see to do this is by editing each table slot, but I can't get FooDraw's color picker to take a hexadecimal RGB value.
The second version of the question is smart. It allows an answer that suggests a tool better suited to the task.
Don't ask people to reply by private e-mail
Hackers believe solving problems should be a public, transparent process during which a first try at an answer can and should be corrected if someone more knowledgeable notices that it is incomplete or incorrect. Also, helpers get some of their reward for being respondents from being seen to be competent and knowledgeable by their peers.
When you ask for a private reply, you are disrupting both the process and the reward. Don't do this. It's the respondent's choice whether to reply privately — and if he does, it's usually because he thinks the question is too ill-formed or obvious to be interesting to others.
There is one limited exception to this rule. If you think the question is such that you are likely to get many answers that are all closely similar, then the magic words are “e-mail me and I'll summarize the answers for the group”. It is courteous to try and save the mailing list or newsgroup a flood of substantially identical postings — but you have to keep the promise to summarize.
Be explicit about your question
Open-ended questions tend to be perceived as open-ended time sinks. Those people most likely to be able to give you a useful answer are also the busiest people (if only because they take on the most work themselves). People like that are allergic to open-ended time sinks, thus they tend to be allergic to open-ended questions.
You are more likely to get a useful response if you are explicit about what you want respondents to do (provide pointers, send code, check your patch, whatever). This will focus their effort and implicitly put an upper bound on the time and energy a respondent must allocate to helping you. This is good.
To understand the world the experts live in, think of expertise as an abundant resource and time to respond as a scarce one. The less of a time commitment you implicitly ask for, the more likely you are to get an answer from someone really good and really busy.
So it is useful to frame your question to minimize the time commitment required for an expert to field it — but this is often not the same thing as simplifying the question. Thus, for example, “Would you give me a pointer to a good explanation of X?” is usually a smarter question than “Would you explain X, please?”. If you have some malfunctioning code, it is usually smarter to ask for someone to explain what's wrong with it than it is to ask someone to fix it.
When asking about code
Don't ask others to debug your broken code without giving a hint what sort of problem they should be searching for. Posting a few hundred lines of code, saying "it doesn't work", will get you ignored. Posting a dozen lines of code, saying "after line 7 I was expecting to see
If you simply want a code review, say as much up front, and be sure to mention what areas you think might particularly need review and why.
Don't post homework questions
Hackers are good at spotting homework questions; most of us have done them ourselves. Those questions are for you to work out, so that you will learn from the experience. It is OK to ask for hints, but not for entire solutions.
If you suspect you have been passed a homework question, but can't solve it anyway, try asking in a user group forum or (as a last resort) in a “user” list/forum of a project. While the hackers will spot it, some of the advanced users may at least give you a hint.
Prune pointless queries
Resist the temptation to close your request for help with semantically-null questions like “Can anyone help me?” or “Is there an answer?” First: if you've written your problem description halfway competently, such tacked-on questions are at best superfluous. Second: because they are superfluous, hackers find them annoying — and are likely to return logically impeccable but dismissive answers like “Yes, you can be helped” and “No, there is no help for you.”
In general, asking yes-or-no questions is a good thing to avoid unless you want a yes-or-no answer.
Don't flag your question as “Urgent”, even if it is for you
That's your problem, not ours. Claiming urgency is very likely to be counter-productive: most hackers will simply delete such messages as rude and selfish attempts to elicit immediate and special attention.
There is one semi-exception. It can be worth mentioning if you're using the program in some high-profile place, one that the hackers will get excited about; in such a case, if you're under time pressure, and you say so politely, people may get interested enough to answer faster.
This is a very risky thing to do, however, because the hackers' metric for what is exciting probably differs from yours. Posting from the International Space Station would qualify, for example, but posting on behalf of a feel-good charitable or political cause would almost certainly not. In fact, posting “Urgent: Help me save the fuzzy baby seals!” will reliably get you shunned or flamed even by hackers who think fuzzy baby seals are important.
If you find this mysterious, re-read the rest of this how-to repeatedly until you understand it before posting anything at all.
Courtesy never hurts, and sometimes helps
Be courteous. Use “Please” and “Thanks for your attention” or “Thanks for your consideration”. Make it clear you appreciate the time people spend helping you for free.
To be honest, this isn't as important as (and cannot substitute for) being grammatical, clear, precise and descriptive, avoiding proprietary formats etc.; hackers in general would rather get somewhat brusque but technically sharp bug reports than polite vagueness. (If this puzzles you, remember that we value a question by what it teaches us.)
However, if you've got your technical ducks in a row, politeness does increase your chances of getting a useful answer.
(We must note that the only serious objection we've received from veteran hackers to this HOWTO is with respect to our previous recommendation to use “Thanks in advance”. Some hackers feel this connotes an intention not to thank anybody afterwards. Our recommendation is to either say “Thanks in advance” first and thank respondents afterwards, or express courtesy in a different way, such as by saying “Thanks for your attention” or “Thanks for your consideration”.)
Follow up with a brief note on the solution
Send a note after the problem has been solved to all who helped you; let them know how it came out and thank them again for their help. If the problem attracted general interest in a mailing list or newsgroup, it's appropriate to post the followup there.
Optimally, the reply should be to the thread started by the original question posting, and should have ‘FIXED’, ‘RESOLVED’ or an equally obvious tag in the subject line. On mailing lists with fast turnaround, a potential respondent who sees a thread about “Problem X” ending with “Problem X - FIXED” knows not to waste his/her time even reading the thread (unless (s)he) personally finds Problem X interesting) and can therefore use that time solving a different problem.
Your followup doesn't have to be long and involved; a simple “Howdy — it was a failed network cable! Thanks, everyone. - Bill” would be better than nothing. In fact, a short and sweet summary is better than a long dissertation unless the solution has real technical depth. Say what action solved the problem, but you need not replay the whole troubleshooting sequence.
For problems with some depth, it is appropriate to post a summary of the troubleshooting history. Describe your final problem statement. Describe what worked as a solution, and indicate avoidable blind alleys after that. The blind alleys should come after the correct solution and other summary material, rather than turning the follow-up into a detective story. Name the names of people who helped you; you'll make friends that way.
Besides being courteous and informative, this sort of followup will help others searching the archive of the mailing-list/newsgroup/forum to know exactly which solution helped you and thus may also help them.
Last, and not least, this sort of followup helps everybody who assisted feel a satisfying sense of closure about the problem. If you are not a techie or hacker yourself, trust us that this feeling is very important to the gurus and experts you tapped for help. Problem narratives that trail off into unresolved nothingness are frustrating things; hackers itch to see them resolved. The goodwill that scratching that itch earns you will be very, very helpful to you next time you need to pose a question.
Consider how you might be able to prevent others from having the same problem in the future. Ask yourself if a documentation or FAQ patch would help, and if the answer is yes send that patch to the maintainer.
Among hackers, this sort of good followup behavior is actually more important than conventional politeness. It's how you get a reputation for playing well with others, which can be a very valuable asset.
How To Interpret Answers
RTFM and STFW: How To Tell You've Seriously Screwed Up
There is an ancient and hallowed tradition: if you get a reply that reads “RTFM”, the person who sent it thinks you should have Read The Fucking Manual. He or she is almost certainly right. Go read it.
RTFM has a younger relative. If you get a reply that reads “STFW”, the person who sent it thinks you should have Searched The Fucking Web. He or she is almost certainly right. Go search it. (The milder version of this is when you are told “Google is your friend!”)
In Web forums, you may also be told to search the forum archives. In fact, someone may even be so kind as to provide a pointer to the previous thread where this problem was solved. But do not rely on this consideration; do your archive-searching before asking.
Often, the person telling you to do a search has the manual or the web page with the information you need open, and is looking at it as he or she types. These replies mean that he thinks (a) the information you need is easy to find, and (b) you will learn more if you seek out the information than if you have it spoon-fed to you.
You shouldn't be offended by this; by hacker standards, your respondent is showing you a rough kind of respect simply by not ignoring you. You should instead be thankful for this grandmotherly kindness.
If you don't understand...
If you don't understand the answer, do not immediately bounce back a demand for clarification. Use the same tools that you used to try and answer your original question (manuals, FAQs, the Web, skilled friends) to understand the answer. Then, if you still need to ask for clarification, exhibit what you have learned.
For example, suppose I tell you: “It sounds like you've got a stuck zentry; you'll need to clear it.” Then: here's a bad followup question: “What's a zentry?” Here's a good followup question: “OK, I read the man page and zentries are only mentioned under the -z and -p switches. Neither of them says anything about clearing zentries. Is it one of these or am I missing something here?”
Dealing with rudeness
Much of what looks like rudeness in hacker circles is not intended to give offense. Rather, it's the product of the direct, cut-through-the-bullshit communications style that is natural to people who are more concerned about solving problems than making others feel warm and fuzzy.
When you perceive rudeness, try to react calmly. If someone is really acting out, it is very likely a senior person on the list or newsgroup or forum will call him or her on it. If that doesn't happen and you lose your temper, it is likely that the person you lose it at was behaving within the hacker community's norms and you will be considered at fault. This will hurt your chances of getting the information or help you want.
On the other hand, you will occasionally run across rudeness and posturing that is quite gratuitous. The flip-side of the above is that it is acceptable form to slam real offenders quite hard, dissecting their misbehavior with a sharp verbal scalpel. Be very, very sure of your ground before you try this, however. The line between correcting an incivility and starting a pointless flamewar is thin enough that hackers themselves not infrequently blunder across it; if you are a newbie or an outsider, your chances of avoiding such a blunder are low. If you're after information rather than entertainment, it's better to keep your fingers off the keyboard than to risk this.
(Some people assert that many hackers have a mild form of autism or Asperger's Syndrome, and are actually missing some of the brain circuitry that lubricates “normal” human social interaction. This may or may not be true. If you are not a hacker yourself, it may help you cope with our eccentricities if you think of us as being brain-damaged. Go right ahead. We won't care; we like being whatever it is we are, and generally have a healthy skepticism about clinical labels.)
In the next section, we'll talk about a different issue; the kind of “rudeness” you'll see when you misbehave.
On Not Reacting Like A Loser
Odds are you'll screw up a few times on hacker community forums — in ways detailed in this article, or similar. And you'll be told exactly how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides. In public.
When this happens, the worst thing you can do is whine about the experience, claim to have been verbally assaulted, demand apologies, scream, hold your breath, threaten lawsuits, complain to people's employers, leave the toilet seat up, etc. Instead, here's what you do:
Get over it. It's normal. In fact, it's healthy and appropriate.
Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by people actively applying them, visibly, in public. Don't whine that all criticism should have been conveyed via private e-mail: That's not how it works. Nor is it useful to insist you've been personally insulted when someone comments that one of your claims was wrong, or that his views differ. Those are loser attitudes.
There have been hacker forums where, out of some misguided sense of hyper-courtesy, participants are banned from posting any fault-finding with another's posts, and told “Don't say anything if you're unwilling to help the user.” The resulting departure of clueful participants to elsewhere causes them to descend into meaningless babble and become useless as technical forums.
Exaggeratedly “friendly” (in that fashion) or useful: Pick one.
Remember: When that hacker tells you that you've screwed up, and (no matter how gruffly) tells you not to do it again, he's acting out of concern for (1) you and (2) his community. It would be much easier for him to ignore you and filter you out of his life. If you can't manage to be grateful, at least have a little dignity, don't whine, and don't expect to be treated like a fragile doll just because you're a newcomer with a theatrically hypersensitive soul and delusions of entitlement.
Sometimes people will attack you personally, flame without an apparent reason, etc., even if you don't screw up (or have only screwed up in their imagination). In this case, complaining is the way to really screw up.
These flamers are either lamers who don't have a clue but believe themselves to be experts, or would-be psychologists testing whether you'll screw up. The other readers either ignore them, or find ways to deal with them on their own. The flamers' behavior creates problems for themselves, which don't have to concern you.
Don't let yourself be drawn into a flamewar, either. Most flames are best ignored — after you've checked whether they are really flames, not pointers to the ways in which you have screwed up, and not cleverly ciphered answers to your real question (this happens as well).
Questions Not To Ask
Here are some classic stupid questions, and what hackers are thinking when they don't answer them.
Q: Where can I find program or resource X?
Q: How can I use X to do Y?
Q: How can I configure my shell prompt?
Q: Can I convert an AcmeCorp document into a TeX file using the Bass-o-matic file converter?
Q: My {program, configuration, SQL statement} doesn't work
Q: I'm having problems with my Windows machine. Can you help?
Q: My program doesn't work. I think system facility X is broken.
Q: I'm having problems installing Linux or X. Can you help?
Q: How can I crack root/steal channel-ops privileges/read someone's e-mail?
Q:
Where can I find program or resource X?
A:
The same place I'd find it, fool — at the other end of a web search. Ghod, doesn't everybody know how to use Google yet?
Q:
How can I use X to do Y?
A:
If what you want is to do Y, you should ask that question without pre-supposing the use of a method that may not be appropriate. Questions of this form often indicate a person who is not merely ignorant about X, but confused about what problem Y they are solving and too fixated on the details of their particular situation. It is generally best to ignore such people until they define their problem better.
Q:
How can I configure my shell prompt?
A:
If you're smart enough to ask this question, you're smart enough to RTFM and find out yourself.
Q:
Can I convert an AcmeCorp document into a TeX file using the Bass-o-matic file converter?
A:
Try it and see. If you did that, you'd (a) learn the answer, and (b) stop wasting my time.
Q:
My {program, configuration, SQL statement} doesn't work
A:
This is not a question, and I'm not interested in playing Twenty Questions to pry your actual question out of you — I have better things to do. On seeing something like this, my reaction is normally of one of the following:
do you have anything else to add to that?
oh, that's too bad, I hope you get it fixed.
and this has exactly what to do with me?
Q:
I'm having problems with my Windows machine. Can you help?
A:
Yes. Throw out that Microsoft trash and install an open-source operating system like Linux or BSD.
Note: you can ask questions related to Windows machines if they are about a program that does have an official Windows build, or interacts with Windows machines (i.e., Samba). Just don't be surprised by the reply that the problem is with Windows and not the program, because Windows is so broken in general that this is very often the case.
Q:
My program doesn't work. I think system facility X is broken.
A:
While it is possible that you are the first person to notice an obvious deficiency in system calls and libraries heavily used by hundreds or thousands of people, it is rather more likely that you are utterly clueless. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; when you make a claim like this one, you must back it up with clear and exhaustive documentation of the failure case.
Q:
I'm having problems installing Linux or X. Can you help?
A:
No. I'd need hands-on access to your machine to troubleshoot this. Go ask your local Linux user group for hands-on help. (You can find a list of user groups here.)
Note: questions about installing Linux may be appropriate if you're on a forum or mailing list about a particular distribution, and the problem is with that distro; or on local user groups forums. In this case, be sure to describe the exact details of the failure. But do careful searching first, with "linux" and all suspicious pieces of hardware.
Q:
How can I crack root/steal channel-ops privileges/read someone's e-mail?
A:
You're a lowlife for wanting to do such things and a moron for asking a hacker to help you.
Good and Bad Questions
Finally, I'm going to illustrate how to ask questions in a smart way by example; pairs of questions about the same problem, one asked in a stupid way and one in a smart way.
Stupid: Where can I find out stuff about the Foonly Flurbamatic?
This question just begs for "STFW" as a reply.
Smart: I used Google to try to find “Foonly Flurbamatic 2600” on the Web, but I got no useful hits. Can I get a pointer to programming information on this device?
This one has already STFWed, and sounds like he might have a real problem.
Stupid: I can't get the code from project foo to compile. Why is it broken?
The querent assumes that somebody else screwed up. Arrogant git...
Smart: The code from project foo doesn't compile under Nulix version 6.2. I've read the FAQ, but it doesn't have anything in it about Nulix-related problems. Here's a transcript of my compilation attempt; is it something I did?
The querent has specified the environment, read the FAQ, is showing the error, and is not assuming his problems are someone else's fault. This one might be worth some attention.
Stupid: I'm having problems with my motherboard. Can anybody help?
J. Random Hacker's response to this is likely to be “Right. Do you need burping and diapering, too?” followed by a punch of the delete key.
Smart: I tried X, Y, and Z on the S2464 motherboard. When that didn't work, I tried A, B, and C. Note the curious symptom when I tried C. Obviously the florbish is grommicking, but the results aren't what one might expect. What are the usual causes of grommicking on Athlon MP motherboards? Anybody got ideas for more tests I can run to pin down the problem?
This person, on the other hand, seems worthy of an answer. He/she has exhibited problem-solving intelligence rather than passively waiting for an answer to drop from on high.
In the last question, notice the subtle but important difference between demanding “Give me an answer” and “Please help me figure out what additional diagnostics I can run to achieve enlightenment.”
In fact, the form of that last question is closely based on a real incident that happened in August 2001 on the linux-kernel mailing list (lkml). I (Eric) was the one asking the question that time. I was seeing mysterious lockups on a Tyan S2462 motherboard. The list members supplied the critical information I needed to solve them.
By asking the question in the way I did, I gave people something to chew on; I made it easy and attractive for them to get involved. I demonstrated respect for my peers' ability and invited them to consult with me as a peer. I also demonstrated respect for the value of their time by telling them the blind alleys I had already run down.
Afterwards, when I thanked everyone and remarked how well the process had worked, an lkml member observed that he thought it had worked not because I'm a “name” on that list, but because I asked the question in the proper form.
Hackers are in some ways a very ruthless meritocracy; I'm certain he was right, and that if I had behaved like a sponge I would have been flamed or ignored no matter who I was. His suggestion that I write up the whole incident as instruction to others led directly to the composition of this guide.
If You Can't Get An Answer
If you can't get an answer, please don't take it personally that we don't feel we can help you. Sometimes the members of the asked group may simply not know the answer. No response is not the same as being ignored, though admittedly it's hard to spot the difference from outside.
In general, simply re-posting your question is a bad idea. This will be seen as pointlessly annoying. Have patience: the person with your answer may be in a different time-zone and asleep. Or it may be that your question wasn't well-formed to begin with.
There are other sources of help you can go to, often sources better adapted to a novice's needs.
There are many online and local user groups who are enthusiasts about the software, even though they may never have written any software themselves. These groups often form so that people can help each other and help new users.
There are also plenty of commercial companies you can contract with for help, both large and small (Red Hat and SpikeSource are two of the best known; there are many others). Don't be dismayed at the idea of having to pay for a bit of help! After all, if your car engine blows a head gasket, chances are you would take it to a repair shop and pay to get it fixed. Even if the software didn't cost you anything, you can't expect that support to always come for free.
For popular software like Linux, there are at least 10,000 users per developer. It's just not possible for one person to handle the support calls from over 10,000 users. Remember that even if you have to pay for support, you are still paying much less than if you had to buy the software as well (and support for closed-source software is usually more expensive and less competent than support for open-source software).
How To Answer Questions in a Helpful Way
Be gentle. Problem-related stress can make people seem rude or stupid even when they're not.
Reply to a first offender off-line. There is no need of public humiliation for someone who may have made an honest mistake. A real newbie may not know how to search archives or where the FAQ is stored or posted.
If you don't know for sure, say so! A wrong but authoritative-sounding answer is worse than none at all. Don't point anyone down a wrong path simply because it's fun to sound like an expert. Be humble and honest; set a good example for both the querent and your peers.
If you can't help, don't hinder. Don't make jokes about procedures that could trash the user's setup — the poor sap might interpret these as instructions.
Ask probing questions to elicit more details. If you're good at this, the querent will learn something — and so might you. Try to turn the bad question into a good one; remember we were all newbies once.
While muttering RTFM is sometimes justified when replying to someone who is just a lazy slob, a pointer to documentation (even if it's just a suggestion to google for a key phrase) is better.
If you're going to answer the question at all, give good value. Don't suggest kludgy workarounds when somebody is using the wrong tool or approach. Suggest good tools. Reframe the question.
Help your community learn from the question. When you field a good question, ask yourself “How would the relevant documentation or FAQ have to change so that nobody has to answer this again?” Then send a patch to the document maintainer.
If you did research to answer the question, demonstrate your skills rather than writing as though you pulled the answer out of your butt. Answering one good question is like feeding a hungry person one meal, but teaching them research skills by example is showing them how to grow food for a lifetime.
Related Resources
If you need instruction in the basics of how personal computers, Unix, and the Internet work, see The Unix and Internet Fundamentals HOWTO.
When you release software or write patches for software, try to follow the guidelines in the Software Release Practice HOWTO.
Acknowledgements
Evelyn Mitchell contributed some example stupid questions and inspired the “How To Give A Good Answer” section. Mikhail Ramendik contributed some particularly valuable suggestions for improvements.
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How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
提问的智慧
摘自：EDN 论坛http://group.ednchina.com/323/10829.aspx
Copyright (C) 2001 by Eric S. Raymond
中文版Copyleft 2001 by D.H.Grand(nOBODY/Ginux)
英文版：http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
感谢Eric 的耐心指点和同意，本文才得以完成并发布，本指南
英文版版权为Eric Steven Raymond 所有，
中文版版权由D.H.Grand[nOBODY/Ginux]所有。
目录
1 简介
2 提问之前
3 怎样提问
3.1 谨慎选择论坛
3.2 尽量使用邮件列表
3.3 用辞贴切，语法正确，拼写无误
3.4 用易读格式发送问题
3.5 使用含义丰富，描述准确的标题
3.6 精确描述，信息量大
3.7 话不在多
3.8 只说症状，不说猜想
3.9 按时间顺序列出症状
3.10 别要求私下答复
3.11 明白你想问什么
3.12 别问应该自己解决的问题
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3.13 去除无意义的疑问
3.14 谦逊绝没有害处，而且常帮大忙
3.15 问题解决后，加个简短说明
4 如何理解答案
4.1 RTFM 和 STFW：别烦我啦
4.2 还是不懂
4.3 面对无礼
5 决不要象个失败者
6 三思而后问
7 好问题，坏问题
8 找不到答案怎么办
一、简介
在黑客世界里，当提出一个技术问题时，你能得到怎样的回答？这取决于挖出答案的难
度，同样取决于你提问的方法。本指南旨在帮助你提高发问技巧，以获取你最想要的答案。
首先你必须明白，黑客们只偏爱艰巨的任务，或者能激发他们思维的好问题。
如若不然，我们还来干吗？如果你有值得我们反复咀嚼玩味的好问题，我们自会对你感
激不尽。好问题是激励，是厚礼，可以提高我们的理解力 ，而且通常会暴露我们以前从没意
识到或者思考过的问题。对黑客而言，“问得好！”是发自内心的大力称赞。
尽管黑客们有蔑视简单问题和不友善的坏名声，有时看起来似乎我们对新手，对知识贫
乏者怀有敌意，但其实不是那样的。
我们不想掩饰对这样一些人的蔑视 —— 他们不愿思考，或者在发问前不去完成他们应
该做的事。这种人只会谋杀时间 —— 他们只愿索取，从不付出，无端消耗我们的时间，而
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我们本可以把时间用在更有趣的问题或者更值得回答的人身上。
我们称这样的人为 “失败者”（由于历史原因，我们有时把它拼作“lusers”）。
我们也知道，很多人只想使用我们编写的软件，对技术细节没什么兴趣。对多数人们而
言，计算机不过是一个工具，一种达到目的的手段；他们有更重要的事情要做，有更重要的
生活要过。我们明白这点，也并不奢望每个人都对另我们痴狂的技术问题有兴致。
然而，我们回答问题的风格是针对这样一群人 —— 他们有兴趣，并且愿意积极参与问
题的解决。这点不会改变，也不应该改变；如果变了，我们将失去我们引以为傲的效率。
我们在很大程度上属于志愿者，从繁忙的生活中抽出时间来解惑答疑，而且时常被提问
淹没。所以我们无情的滤掉一些话题，特别是抛弃那些看起来象失败者的家伙，以便更高效
的利用时间来回答胜利者的问题。
如果你觉得我们过于傲慢的态度让你不爽，让你委屈，不妨设身处地想想。我们并没有
要求你向我们屈服 —— 事实上，我们中的大多数人最喜欢公平交易不过了，只要你付出小
小努力来满足最起码的要求，我们就会欢迎你加入到我们的文化中来。但让我们帮助那些不
愿意帮助自己的人是没有意义的。如果你不能接受这种“歧视”，我们建议你花点钱找家商业
公司签个技术支持协议得了，别向黑客乞求帮助。
如果你决定向我们求助，当然不希望被视为失败者，更不愿成为失败者中的一员。立刻
得到有效答案的最好方法，就是象胜利者那样提问 —— 聪明、自信、有解决问题的思路，
只是偶尔在特定的问题上需要获得一点帮助。
（欢迎对本指南提出改进意见。 任何建议请 E-mail 至 esr@thyrsus.com ，然而请注
意，本文并非网络礼节的通用指南，我通常会拒绝无助于在技术论坛得到有用答案的建议。）
（当然，如果你写中文，最好还是寄到 DHGrand@hotmail.com : -）
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二、提问之前
在通过电邮、新闻组或者聊天室提出技术问题前，检查你有没有做到：
1) 通读手册，试着自己找答案。
2) 在 FAQ 里找答案（一份维护得好的 FAQ 可以包罗万象 :）。
3) 在网上搜索（个人推荐 google~~~）。
4) 向你身边精于此道的朋友打听。
当你提出问题的时候，首先要说明在此之前你干了些什么；这将有助于树立你的形象：
你不是一个妄图不劳而获的乞讨者，不愿浪费别人的时间。能说明你从这些操作中学到
了什么就更好了。如果提问者能从答案中学到东西，我们更乐于回答他的问题。
周全的思考，准备好你的问题，草率的发问只能得到草率的回答，或者根本得不到任何
答案。越表现出在寻求帮助前为解决问题付出的努力，你越能得到实质性的帮助。
小心别问错了问题。如果你的问题基于错误的假设，普通黑客（J. Random Hacker）
通常会用无意义的字面解释来答复你，心里想着“蠢问题...”，希望着你会从问题的回答（而
非你想得到的答案）中汲取教训。
决不要自以为够资格得到答案，你没这种资格。毕竟你没有为这种服务支付任何报酬。
你要自己去“挣”回一个答案，靠提出一个有内涵的，有趣的，有思维激励作用的问题 ——
一个对社区的经验有潜在贡献的问题，而不仅仅是被动的从他人处索要知识 —— 去挣到这
个答案。
另一方面，表明你愿意在找答案的过程中做点什么，是一个非常好的开端。
“谁能给点提示？”、“我这个例子里缺了什么？”以及“我应该检查什么地方？”比“请
把确切的过程贴出来”更容易得到答复。因为你显得只要有人指点正确的方向，你就有完成
它的能力和决心。
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三、怎样提问
3.1 谨慎选择论坛
小心选择提问的场合。如果象下面描述的那样，你很可能被忽略掉或者被看作失败者：
1) 在风马牛不相及的论坛贴出你的问题
2) 在探讨高级技巧的论坛张贴非常初级的问题；反之亦然
3) 在太多的不同新闻组交叉张贴
黑客们通常砍掉问错地方的问题，以保护自己的社区不被大量无关帖子淹没。你不会希
望自己的帖子被这样砍掉吧。
总的说来，问题发到精心挑选的公众论坛，比发到封闭的小圈子更容易得到有用的答案。
这一现象有多种原因，其中之一是公众论坛有更多潜在的问题回答者；另一个原因是公众论
坛有更多的听众。黑客们更愿意让尽量多的人 —— 而非有限的一两个 —— 从回答中受益。
3.2 尽量使用邮件列表
如果某项目有自己的开发邮件列表，要把问题发到这个邮件列表而不是某个开发者，即
使你很清楚谁最能回答你的问题。仔细查看项 目文档和项目主页，找到这个项目的邮件列表
地址，这样做的理由有四：
1) 任何值得问某位开发者的好问题，都值得向整个开发团体提出。反之，若你认为这个问
题不值得在邮件列表中提起，就没有理由用它来骚扰任何一位开发者。
2) 在邮件列表提问可以分担开发者的工作量。某位开发者（尤其当他是项目负责人的情况
下），可能忙得没时间回答你的问题。
3) 大多数邮件列表都有历史存档，而且都能在搜索引擎中检索到。人们可以从中找到你的
问题和答案，不用一遍又一遍在列表中发问。
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4) 如果某个问题经常被提出，开发者可以据此改进文档或改进软件，以减少用户的困惑。
而如果问题总在私下提出，就不会有人对此有整体上的把握了。
如果你找不到项目的邮件列表地址，只能看到项目维护者的，那就写给维护者吧。在这
种情况下，也别以为邮件列表并不存在。在你的信中写明你已尽力寻找，仍无法找到邮件列
表。另外表明你不介意将此消息转给他人。（大多数人认为私信就应该是私下的，即使并没有
什么可保密的内容。允许你的消息被转寄给他人，给了收信者一种处理你邮件的选择。）
3.3 用辞贴切，语法正确，拼写无误
我们从经验中发现，粗心的写作者通常也是马虎的思考者 （我敢打包票）。回答粗心大
意者的问题很不值得，我们宁愿把时间耗在别处。
因此，明确充分表述你的问题非常重要。如果你嫌这样做麻烦，我们也会懒得搭理你。
注意推敲你的用辞，不一定要用呆板正式的语言 —— 事实上，黑客文化的价值观是不拘小
节。准确的运用俚语和富有幽默感的语言，但别乱用；一定要能表明你在思考、在关注。
正确的拼写，标点符号和大小写很重要。别把“its”和“it's”或者“loose”和“lose”
搞混淆了。别用全部大写的形式，这被视为粗鲁的大声叫嚷（全都用小写也好不到哪儿去，
因为这会给阅读带来困难。Alan Cox 可以用全部小写，但你不行）。
更一般的说，如果你的提问写得象个半文盲，你很有可能被忽视。如果写得象一个窥客
（pj 爱好者）或者灰客（只会用现成工具的捣乱者）绝对是自己找死，保证你除了无情的抵
制什么也得不到（或者，最好的结局是得到一大堆挖苦嘲笑的“帮助”）。
如果你在使用非母语的论坛提问，你可以犯点拼写和语法上的小错 —— 但决不能在思
考上马虎 （没错，我们能弄清两者的分别）。另外，除非你确切知道你的回答者会使用什么语
言，否则请用英文。匆匆忙忙的黑客往往简单的跳过他们看不懂的问题，而英文是网络上的
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工作语言。用英文可以降低你的问题未被阅读即遭抛弃的风险。
3.4 用易读格式发送问题
如果人为造成你的提问难以阅读和理解，将会更容易被人忽略。因此你要：
1) 使用纯文本邮件，不要使用 HTML（关掉 HTML 并不难）。
2) 通常可以附加 MIME 附件，但一定要有真正的内容（例如附加的源文件或者补丁），而不
仅仅是你的邮件客户端产生的文件模板（例如你邮件的一份拷贝）。
3) 不要把所有问题放在不停换行的一整段中。（这将让答复的人难于回答其中一部分问题，
即使能回答所有问题，我也更希望条理清楚的一个一个来 :）。很可能收件人只能在 80
个字符宽度的文本显示器上读信，因此要相应的把行环绕模式设在 80 字符以内。
4) 不要在英文论坛使用 MIME Quoted-Printable 编码发送；这种编码格式对 ASCII 码不能
表达的语言来说是非常必要的，但很多邮件代理不支持它，这时，满篇的“=20”符号把
文字分割开，既难看，又分散注意力。
5) 永远不要指望黑客会乐于阅读封闭所有权的文件格式，例如微软的 Word 格式。多数黑
客对此的反应就象你在门口的阶梯上堆满热烘烘的猪粪（意即谁也不会踏进你的门 ——
译者注）。
6) 如果你通过一台安装 Windows 的电脑发送邮件，关闭微软愚蠢的“智能引用”功能。这
能使你免于在邮件中夹带垃圾字符。
3.5 使用含义丰富，描述准确的标题
在邮件列表或者新闻组中，大约 50 字以内的主题标题是抓住资深专家注意力的黄金时
机。别用喋喋不休的“帮帮忙”（更别说“救命啊！！！！！”这样让人反感的话）来浪费这个机
会。不要妄想用你的痛苦程度来打动我们，别用空格代替问题的描述，哪怕是极其简短的描
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述。
蠢问题：
救命啊！我的膝上机不能正常显示了！
聪明问题：
XFree86 4.1 下鼠标光标变形，Fooware MV1005 的显示芯片。
如果你在回复中提出问题，记得要修改内容标题，表明里面有一个问题。一个看起来象
“Re：测试”或者“Re：新 bug”的问题很难引起足够重视。另外，引用并删减前文的内容，
给新来的读者留下线索。
3.6 精确描述，信息量大
1) 谨慎明确的描述症状。
2) 提供 问题发生的环境 （机器配置、操作系统、应用程序以及别的什么）。
3) 说明你在提问前是怎样去研究和理解这个问题的。
4) 说明你在提问前采取了什么步骤去解决它。
5) 罗列最近做过什么可能有影响的硬件、软件变更。
尽量想象一个黑客会怎样反问你，在提问的时候预先给他答案。
Simon Tatham 写过一篇名为《如何有效的报告 Bug》的出色短文。强力推荐你也读一
读。
3.7 话不在多
你需要提供精确有效的信息。这并不是要求你简单的把成吨的出错代码或者数据完全转
储摘录到你的提问中。如果你有庞大而复杂的测试条件，尽量把它剪裁得越小越好。
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这样做的用处至少有三点：
第一，表现出你为简化问题付出了努力，这可以使你得到回答的机会增加；
第二，简化问题使你得到有用答案的机会增加；
第三，在提炼你的 bug 报告的过程中，也许你自己就能找出问题所在或作出更正。
3.8 只说症状，不说猜想
告诉黑客们你认为问题是怎样引起的没什么帮助。（如果你的推断如此有效，还用向别
人求助吗？），因此要确信你原原本本告诉了他们问题的症状，不要加进你自己的理解和推论。
让黑客们来诊断吧。
蠢问题：
我在内核编译中一次又一次遇到 SIG11 错误，我怀疑某条飞线搭在主板的走线上了，这
种情况应该怎样检查最好？
聪明问题：
我自制的一套 K6/233 系统，主板是 FIC-PA2007 （VIA Apollo VP2 芯片组），256MB
Corsair PC133 SDRAM，在内核编译中频频产生 SIG11 错误，从开机 20 分钟以后就有这种
情况，开机前 20 分钟内从没发生过。重启也没有用，但是关机一晚上就又能工作 20 分钟。
所有内存都换过了，没有效果。相关部分的典型编译记录如下...。
3.9 按时间顺序列出症状
对找出问题最有帮助的线索，往往就是问题发生前的一系列操作，因此，你的说明应该
包含操作步骤，以及电脑的反应，直到问题产生。在命令行操作的情况下，保存一个操作记
录（例如使用脚本工具），并且引用相关的大约 20 条命令会大有帮助。
如果崩溃的程序有诊断选项（例如用-v 转到详尽模式），试着仔细考虑选择选项以在操
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作记录中增加有用的调试信息。
如果你的说明很长 （超过四个段落），在开头简述问题会有所帮助，接下来按时间顺序
详述。这样黑客们就知道该在你的说明中找什么。
3.10 别要求私下答复
黑客们认为解决问题应该有公开、透明的流程。只要任何更有见地的人注意到答案的不
完善或者不正确，这个最初的答案就可以和应该得到纠正。同时，通过能力和知识被大家注
意，被大家接受，回答问题者得到了应有的奖励。
如果你要求对方私下回答你，这既破坏了整个流程，也破坏了奖励制度。别提这要求，
这是回答者的权利，由他来选择是否私下答复 —— 如果他选择这样做，通常是因为他认为
这个答案过于显而易见或者有不良的公开影响，别人不会感兴趣。
只有一种有限的例外：如果你预计将收到大量雷同的答复，你可以说：“把答案寄给我，
由我来汇总吧。”将邮件列表或者新闻组从大量重复的帖子中打印出来是很有君子之风的 —
— 但请记住，履行自己关于汇总的承诺。
3.11 明白你想问什么
漫无边际的提问近乎无休无止的时间黑洞。最能给你有用答案的人也正是最忙的人（他
们忙是因为要亲自完成大部分工作）。这样的人对无节制的时间黑洞太感冒，因此也可以说他
们对漫无边际的提问太感冒。
如果你明确表述需要回答者做什么 （提供建议，发送一段代码，检查你的补丁或是别的），
就最有可能得到有用的答案。这会定出一个时间和精力的上限，便于回答者集中精力来帮你，
这很奏效。
要理解专家们生活的世界 ，要把专业技能想象为充裕的资源，而回复的时间则是贫乏的
资源。解决你的问题需要的时间越少，越能从忙碌的专家口中掏出答案。
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因此，优化问题的结构，尽量减少专家们解决它所需要的时间，会有很大的帮助——这
通常和简化问题有所区别。因此，问“我想更好的理解 X，能给点提示吗？”通常比问“你
能解释一下 X 吗？”更好。如果你的代码不能工作，问问它有什么地方不对，比要求别人替
你修改要明智得多。
3.12 别问应该自己解决的问题
黑客们总是善于分辨哪些问题应该由你自己解决；因为我们中的大多数都曾自己解决这
类问题。同样，这些问题得由你来搞定，你会从中学到东西。
你可以要求给点提示，但别要求得到完整的解决方案。
3.13 去除无意义的疑问
别用无意义的话结束提问，例如“有人能帮我吗？”或者“有答案吗？”。
首先：如果你对问题的描述不很合适，这样问更是画蛇添足。
其次：由于这样问是画蛇添足，黑客们会很厌烦你 —— 而且通常会用逻辑上正确的回
答来表示他们的蔑视，例如：“没错，有人能帮你”或者“不，没答案 ”。
3.14 谦逊绝没有害处，而且常帮大忙
彬彬有礼，多用“请”和“先道个谢了”。让大家都知道你对他们花费时间义务提供帮
助心存感激。
实话实说，虽然这不象合乎语法、清楚准确的描述，避免私有格式等等那么重要（也不
能用来替代它们）；黑客一般更喜欢直接了当、然而技术上敏锐的 bug 报告，而不是彬彬有
礼的废话（如果这让你迷惑不解，请记住，我们衡量一个问题价值的标准是：它能让我们学
会多少）。
然而，如果你有很多问题无法解决，礼貌将会增加你得到有用答案的机会。
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（我们注意到，自从本指南发布后，从资深黑客处得到的唯一严重缺陷反馈，就是对预
先道谢这一条。一些黑客觉得“ 先谢了”的言外之意是过后就不会再感谢任何人了。我们的
建议是：都道谢。）
3.15 问题解决后，加个简短说明
问题解决后，向所有帮助过你的人发个说明，让他们知道问题是怎样解决的，并再一次
向他们表示感谢。如果问题在新闻组或者邮件列表中引起了广泛关注，应该在那里贴一个补
充说明。
补充说明不必很长或是很深入；简单的一句“你好，原来是网线出了问题！谢谢大家 —
— Bill”比什么也不说要强。事实上，除非结论真的很有技术含量，否则简短可爱的小结比
长篇学术论文更好。说明问题是怎样解决的，但大可不必将解决问题的过程复述一遍。
除了表示礼貌和反馈信息以外，这种补充有助于他人在邮件列表/新闻组/论坛中搜索对
你有过帮助的完整解决方案，这可能对他们也很有用。
最后（至少？），这种补充有助于所有提供过帮助的人从中得到满足感。
如果你自己不是老手或者黑客，那就相信我们 ，这种感觉对于那些你向他们求助的导师
或者专家而言，是非常重要的。问题久拖未决会让人灰心；黑客们渴望看到问题被解决。好
人有好报，满足他们的渴望，你会在下次贴出新问题时尝到甜头。
四、如何理解答案
4.1 RTFM 和 STFW：别烦我啦
有一个古老而神圣的传统：如果你收到“RTFM （Read The f\*\*king Manual）” 的
回复，回答者认为你应该去读 TMD 手册。当然，基本上他是对的，你应该读一读。
RTFM 有一个年轻的亲戚。如果答案是“STFW （Search The f\*\*king Web）”，回答
者认为你应该到 TMD 的网上去搜索。基本上，他也是对的，你就去找吧。
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通常，用这两句之一回答你的人会给你一份包含你需要内容的手册或者一个网址，而且
他们打这些字的时候正在阅读着。这些答复意味着回答者认为：
(1). 你需要的信息非常容易获得 ；
(2). 你自己去搜索这些信息比灌给你能让你学到更多。
别为这个而不爽；依照黑客的标准，他没有对你的要求视而不见，已经能大致能表示对
你的关注。你应该对他祖母般的慈祥表示感谢。
4.2 还是不懂
如果你不是很理解答案，别立刻要求对方解释。象你以前试着自己解决问题时那样（利
用手册，FAQ，网络，身边的高手），去理解它。如果你真的需要对方解释，记得表现出你已
经学到了点什么。
比方说，如果我回答你：“看来似乎是 zEntry 被阻塞了；你应该先清除它。”，然后：
一个很糟的后续问题：“zEntry 是什么？”
聪明的问法应该是这样： “哦￣￣￣我看过帮助了但是只有-z 和-p 两个参数中提到了
zEntry 而且还都没有清楚的解释:<你是指这两个中的哪一个吗？还是我看漏了什么？” 4.3 面对无礼 黑客圈子里很多貌似为难的言行并非有意冒犯。更恰当的说，这是直率、不说废话的沟 通方式的产物，这种沟通方式源于人们关注问题的解决 —— 多过让人感受温暖亲情然而却 依旧糊里糊涂 —— 的天性。 如果你觉得受到粗鲁的对待，请保持冷静。如果真有人表现粗野 ，通常会有列表/新闻 组/论坛的长辈找他谈心，如果没有这样，而你又大发脾气，则很可能对方的言行是黑客社区 行为规范许可内，而你被认为是有过错的。这会不利于你得到信息或者帮助。 第 13 页共 19 页 ----------------------- Page 14----------------------- 提问的智慧 http://www.embedream.com/
另一方面，你偶尔也会无缘无故有粗野的言行和心态。上述现象的另一面是，人们允许
狠狠打击真正的冒犯者，用尖刻的言语剖析他们的不当言行。如果你真决定这样做，先仔细
又仔细的掂量一下你自己的分量。合理的粗鲁与发动一场无意义的论战之间只隔了一条细细
的线，冒冒失失撞上去的黑客不在少数；如果你是新手或者门外汉，不犯这种错的机会是很
渺茫的。如果你想得到信息而不是来胡闹，别冒险回复，最好把手从键盘上拿开。
（有些人声称多数黑客有孤僻症或者社交障碍综合征的轻度症状，而且确实缺少部分有
助“常人”进行社交行为的脑组织结构。这也许是真的，也许不是。如果你自己不是黑客，
那么，把我们想象成脑部有缺陷的人有助你面对我们的古怪。有话直说，我们无所谓；我们
乐于按自己的想法生活，而且总是对医学概念持相当怀疑的态度。）
在下一节里，我们将谈论另一个话题；当你行为出错时可能遇到的“无礼”。
五、决不要象个失败者
很有可能，你在黑客社区的论坛会受到很多公开的攻击 —— 用本文提到的各种方式或
类似的方法，而且很可能会有各式各样的旁敲侧击来告诉你你有多讨厌。
如果噩梦成真，你能做的最糟的事就是为此发牢骚，抱怨受到人身攻击，要求对方道歉，
尖叫，屏住呼吸，威胁要控诉对方，向他老板告状，不掀起马桶座圈，等等等等。然而，你
应该这样：
由它去吧，这没什么大不了的。实际上这么做是恰当的和有益的（主要是有利身心健康:）。
社区的规范不靠社区，而是靠积极推行它们的人们来维护，这种维护是公开的，显而易
见的。别抱怨说一切批评都应该通过私信传送，它本来就不该那样。 当别人指出你的话有错
误，或者他有不同观点的时候，坚持认为他在羞辱你是没有用的。这些都是失败者的态度。
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有那么一些黑客论坛，出于对高度自谦的误解，禁止参与者张贴专给人找茬的帖子，而
且被告知“如果不愿帮助用户，那就闭嘴。”，他们认为，引开参与者的话题，只会使得他们
陶醉在毫无意义的喋喋不休中，从而失去了技术论坛的意义。
夸张的“友善” （以那种方式）还是有用的帮助：你自己选择吧。
记住：当黑客说你很烦人，（无论用多么粗暴的语言）警告你别再那样做了，他的本意
并非是针对(1)你，以及(2)他的社区。他本来可以轻易的忽略你，把你从他的视线中抹去。如
果你无法接受要向他表示感激，至少应该表现出你的气度，别抱怨，别期望只因为你是新人，
你有戏剧般的敏感脆弱的神经和自封的权利，而受到易碎玩偶般的特别对待。
六、三思而后问
以下是几个经典蠢问题，以及黑客在拒绝回答时的心中所想：
问题：我能在哪找到 X 程序？
问题：我的程序/配置/SQL 申明没有用
问题：我的 Windows 有问题，你能帮我吗？
问题：我在安装 Linux（或者 X）时有问题，你能帮我吗？
问题：我怎么才能 pjroot 帐号/窃取 OP 特权/读别人的邮件呢？
提问 ：我能在哪找到 X 程序？
回答：就在我找到它的地方啊！蠢货 —— 搜索引擎的那一头。天呐！还有人不会用 Google
吗？
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提问 ：我的程序（配置、SQL 申明）没有用
回答：这不算是问题吧，我对找出你的真正问题没兴趣 —— 如果要我问你二十个问题才找
得出来的话 —— 我有更有意思的事要做呢。 在看到这类问题的时候，我的反应通常不外如
下三种：
1) 你还有什么要补充的吗？
2) 真糟糕，希望你能搞定。
3) 这跟我有什么鸟相关？
提问 ：我的 Windows 有问题，你能帮我吗？
回答：能啊，扔掉微软的垃圾，换 Linux 吧。
提问 ：我在安装 Linux（或者 X）时有问题，你能帮我吗？
回答：不能，我只有亲自在你的电脑上动手才能找到毛病。 还是去找你当地的 Linux 用户组
寻求手把手的指导吧（你能在这儿找到用户组的清单）。
提问 ：我怎么才能 pjroot 帐号/窃取 OP 特权/读别人的邮件呢？
回答：想要这样做，说明你是个卑鄙小人；想找个黑客帮你，说明你是个白痴！
七、好问题，坏问题
最后，我举一些例子来说明，怎样聪明的提问；同一个问题的两种问法被放在一起，一
种是愚蠢的，另一种才是明智的。
蠢问题：我可以在哪儿找到关于 Foonly Flurbamatic 的资料？
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黑客的理解：这种问法无非想得到“STFW”这样的回答。
聪明问题 ：我用 Google 搜索过“Foonly Flurbamatic 2600”，但是没找到有用的结果。谁
知道上哪儿去找对这种设备编程的资料？
黑客的理解：这个问题已经 STFW 过了，看起来他真的遇到了麻烦。
蠢问题：我从 FOO 项目找来的源码没法编译。它怎么这么烂？
黑客的理解：他觉得都是别人的错，这个傲慢自大的家伙
聪明问题 ：FOO 项目代码在 Nulix 6.2 版下无法编译通过。我读过了 FAQ，但里面没有提到
跟 Nulix 有关的问题。这是我编译过程的记录，我有什么做得不对的地方吗？
黑客的理解：他讲明了环境，也读过了 FAQ，还指明了错误，并且他没有把问题的责任推到
别人头上，这个家伙值得留意。
蠢问题：我的主板有问题了，谁来帮我？
普通黑客对这类问题的回答通常是：“好的，还要帮你拍拍背和换尿布吗？” ，然后按下删
除键。
聪明问题 ：我在 S2464 主板上试过了 X、Y 和 Z，但没什么作用，我又试了 A、B 和 C。请注
意当我尝试 C 时的奇怪现象。显然边带传输中出现了收缩，但结果出人意料。在多处理器主
板上引起边带泄漏的通常原因是什么？ 谁有好主意接下来我该做些什么测试才能找出问
题？
黑客的理解：这个家伙，从另一个角度来看，值得去回答他。他表现出了解决问题的能力，
而不是坐等天上掉答案。
在最后一个问题中，注意“告诉我答案”和“给我启示，指出我还应该做什么诊断工作”
之间微妙而又重要的区别。
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事实上，后一个问题源自于 2001 年 8 月在 Linux 内核邮件列表上的一个真实的提问。
我（Eric）就是那个提出问题的人。我在 Tyan S2464 主板上观察到了这种无法解释的锁定现
象，列表成员们提供了解决那一问题的重要信息。
通过我的提问方法，我给了大家值得玩味的东西；我让人们很容易参与并且被吸引进来。
我显示了自己具备和他们同等的能力，邀请他们与我共同探讨。我告诉他们我所走过的弯路，
以避免他们再浪费时间，这是一种对他人时间价值的尊重。
后来，当我向每个人表示感谢，并且赞赏这套程序（指邮件列表中的讨论 —— 译者注）
运作得非常出色的时候，一个 Linux 内核邮件列表（lkml）成员表示，问题得到解决并非由
于我是这个列表中的“名人”，而是因为我用了正确的方式来提问。
我们黑客从某种角度来说是拥有丰富知识但缺乏人情味的家伙；我相信他是对的，如果
我象个乞讨者那样提问，不论我是谁，一定会惹恼某些人或者被他们忽视。他建议我记下这
件事，给编写这个指南的人一些指导。
八、找不到答案怎么办
如果仍得不到答案，请不要以为我们觉得无法帮助你。有时只是看到你问题的人不知道
答案罢了。没有回应不代表你被忽视，虽然不可否认这种差别很难区分。
总的说来，简单的重复张贴问题是个很糟的想法。这将被视为无意义的喧闹。
你可以通过其它渠道获得帮助，这些渠道通常更适合初学者的需要。
有许多网上的以及本地的用户组，由狂热的软件爱好者（即使他们可能从没亲自写过任
何软件）组成。通常人们组建这样的团体来互相帮助并帮助新手。
另外，你可以向很多商业公司寻求帮助，不论公司大还是小（Red Hat 和 LinuxCare
就是两个最常见的例子）。别为要付费才能获得帮助而感到沮丧！毕竟，假使你的汽车发动机
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汽缸密封圈爆掉了 —— 完全可能如此 —— 你还得把它送到修车铺，并且为维修付费。就
算软件没花费你一分钱，你也不能强求技术支持总是免费的。
对大众化的软件，就象 Linux 之类而言，每个开发者至少会有上万名用户。根本不可能
由一个人来处理来自上万名用户的求助电话。要知道，即使你要为帮助付费，同你必须购买
同类软件相比，你所付出的也是微不足道的（通常封闭源代码软件的技术支持费用比开放源
代码软件要高得多，且内容也不那么丰富）。
——————————
南京嵌入之梦工作室
整理于：2008 年 10 月 8 日
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