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Created February 7, 2012 10:56
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Asking questions, the right way

When asking questions in the #rubyonrails channel, please follow these 10 simple rules:

  1. Do your research before hand. Your question may be answerable with a quick Google search.
  2. If you've tried Googling, explain what terms you've tried to use so people can better help you.
  3. Do not use pastebin.org or bin.cakephp.org (LOL!). Its font is tiny and it has ads on it which cause the page to load slowly. Use Gist (http://gist.github.com) instead!
  4. Remember that using English is preferable, as the majority of people in the channel speak it. Asking in other languages may give you a response, but English is best.
  5. Anything more than 2 lines goes in a Gist (http://gist.github.com) or a Pastie (http://pastie.org). Spamming the channel with walls of text is not welcome.
  6. Clearly explain what is happening and create a Gist (http://gist.github.com) or Pastie (http://pastie.org) of the code that is causing the problem you are encountering, as well as any useful output like stacktraces. A "Full Trace" as opposed to the default "Application Trace" is preferred.
  7. Treat people in a considerate manner, as they are volunteering their time to help you. If you're being annoying you may be muted by one of the channel ops.
  8. Do not use excessive punctuation. This includes question marks (?), exclamation marks (!) and ellipsis (...).
  9. Do not beg / plead with people to help you. This includes asking questions like "Any ideas?" after posting your original question.
  10. Do not repeat your question every 5 minutes expecting somebody to answer it. If you do not get a reply after the first time perhaps posting your question on StackOverflow (http://stackoverflow.com) would help you. Linking to the question in the channel after you've posted it is OK.
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