Asking for help effectively

skip at pobox.com skip at pobox.com
Thu Jan 12 10:40:08 EST 2006


    Manish> It does not work. I had already tried this earlier.
    Manish> Please suggest some other solutions.
    Manish> Also, I would like to see the stack from where the exception
    Manish> started.

Manish,

You made it extremely difficult for anyone to respond intelligently to your
message.  It has at least the following problems:

    1. The subject isn't related to the problem you are trying to solve.
       Many people won't go beyond that.

    2. You quoted an entire python-list digest.  Which digest message were
       you responding to?  If I was going to try and help directly with the
       problem you are having (instead of trying to get you to ask for help
       more effectively), I'd have to read the entire digest and try to
       figure out which messages are pertinent.

    3. You top-posted, and worse, because of #2, your comment is nowhere near
       the actual message text you were responding to, making it that much
       more difficult to identify your problem.

Read this essay:

    http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

then try again.

Skip



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