Asking Questions

One of the most important tools at your disposal for solving problems is knowing how to efficiently ask questions to others. A common misconceptions among many modders is that good and 1337 modders never ask for help and learn to be independent from day 1, but this has little to do with reality.

The problem with questions is rarely about asking too many or too little questions, but asking the wrong questions.

Asking Good Questions

There isn’t really a template for asking good questions, but for wow modding there are some general pointers:

  • Try to formulate your question completely in a single message.
  • If you are following a tutorial, include this and what step you are currently on.
  • If your problem consists of an error message, include this.
  • If your problem involves feeling confused about a concept, program or guide, mention this.
  • If your problem only comes up as a result of something you attempted yourself to fix another problem, briefly mention the original problem you’re trying to solve.

Bad Question: Direct-messaging or pinging helpers

Sending direct messages or pinging people rarely gets you help faster and over time erodes peoples willingness to spend time helping others out in support channels.

In very rare circumstances it is sometimes good to ping specific people who might know very specific things that nobody else knows, especially if you are willing to help document the knowledge you’re asking for. Problem is then, when people abuse ping/dm systems to to ‘get help faster’, people with very specific knowledges turn off their notifications and can’t even help with things only they know.

Bad Question: Asking to ask

These are questions on the form “can i ask about x” or “is this the right forum to ask for x?”

Just ask the question. Very few people are annoyed by the wrong question accidentally being asked in the wrong place, but almost everyone is annoyed by questions that don’t actually include the question itself.

By asking to ask the question you just waste notifications for nothing useful.

Bad Question: Soliciting a “helper”

These are questions on the form “can someone help me with ?", or "anybody who is good at ?".

This is a bad question, because those answering have no idea about the scope of your question or if they feel like taking the time to answer it once they hear it. Most people avoid questions like these for this reason.

Bad Question: XY Problem

See this article.

These are questions that ask about your own solutions rather than the problem you are trying to solve. In wow modding specifically, a similar problem often occurs when asking questions that follow a tutorial without mentioning that tutorial.

These are bad questions, because your own solution might be completely wrong, or the tutorial you are following might be severely outdated or just wrong.

Bad Question: Asking to skip work

These are questions on the form “how do i install trinitycore” when they ignore workflows that have direct tutorials for them already.

This is a bad question, because tutorials are there for a reason, and without explaining what about it you need help with or don’t understand, most people will assume you’re just trying to get someone else to do your own work for you.

Instead, be specific about what you don’t understand, why you think the tutorial is too difficult or confusing or what you’re actually trying to accomplish. Some examples:

  • I have tried installing trinitycore through the official tutorial, but I get this error “xyz” when I hit compile and I don’t understand what it means.

  • I have tried installing trinitycore, but the tutorial is very overwhelming and I feel like i have no idea what i’m doing. So far I have done “xyz” but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.

  • I have tried to read the tutorial for installing trinitycore, but it feels like this is too difficult for me to do. Are there any easier tutorials or alternatives to just throw up a small test server for a complete beginner?

Bad Question: Asking to avoid learning

Modding is difficult, workflows often take time to get into and frustrations can come at you at almost any time and in the most unpredictable ways.

Asking questions when stumbling into problems or even frustrations is not a bad thing on its own, but it’s important to be wary of developing question-asking as a habit to avoid doing your own research or experiments for anything that feels difficult or frustrating, because those are the only situations where you can effectively practice problem-solving yourself.

This has less to do with how many questions you ask, and more to do with how often you reach for asking without stopping to ask yourself if there is something you can try to teach yourself first, or an experiment you can attempt.

Aside from your very first steps into modding, if you frequently end up in situations where the only thing you can do is ask someone else, chances are you’re attempting to do something that is too difficult for your current skill level, or that you are overwhelming yourself with too much frustration to learn effectively.