In Eric Steven Raymond “How to Ask Questions The Smart Way”, he lets the reader know that asking good smart questions can lead to better responses, because most of these people that are responding to your question are volunteering up their time to help you on your problems. A smart question is someone who is able to describe their problems clearly and carefully, because it shows that you were able to do the work and understands what is going on, and not guessing on what could be the problem. Most people reviewing these questions will get really interested in them, because it may be problems they may not have noticed or thought much about, they would even try to go deeper into your question. A not so smart question would be someone just asking for help and did not do any of the work or did not do any research if the problem was solved previously. In the reading these people are known as “losers” or “lusters”. Being these type of people would result in their question not being answered, these people usually end up wasting peoples time
Example of a smart question from StackOverFlow is Here . In this example the person is asking the difference between let and var, this person also explains what he knows of the two. This question was posted a decade ago, and not a lot of people were able to understand the difference. This person was able to get the correct answer and more details about let and var, and was given example codes.
Example of a not so smart question from StackOverFlow is Here . In this example the person posted their whole code, with little explanation on the problem and expected to get help. This person wanted help on a Get and post loop with array list using javascript exios. In the comment one of the moderators is trying to help this person ask smart question next time, that they should post in the right area to get better expertise, and that they should explain in detail what their problem is, how their code works, and what they want a response of.
In conclusion, it is best to go over the question you want to ask, and see if you would be able to understand what you are trying to ask, if you do not know what you are trying to achieve, other people trying to help won’t understand either, making it difficult to help you.