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I am not even sure if this this is something I should concern myself with, but as a newbie in my category, I see myself only asking questions for a long time to come. Even on things I might possibly have an answer to, I think I would be wise to hold back, as to not pollute the conversation.

If I am meeting my responsibility of asking quality questions, and following up appropriately, I think I can assume that in itself is a contribution — a good participating student is a benefit to other students.

Is this a fair view? Is there more I can do as a serial asker of questions?

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  • 14
    At the rate of (aprox) one upvote per minute here on Meta, yes, you're doing it right :)
    – brasofilo
    Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 20:57
  • Just another angle: If people wouldn't find your questions interesting they wouldn't answer them. Since you got answers to your questions and upvotes it means you make good questions.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 9:22
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    Or it means people are chasing answer upvotes by answering questions they feel are easy? Either way, seems fine to me.
    – Paul
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 9:51
  • Asking is great -- just as long as they're good questions. Bad questions are those that are unclear, those to which an answer can easily be found (i.e. duplicate), or those that are inviting opinion rather than solution.
    – 323go
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 20:00
  • 8
    The fact that you've even considered this question and care about contributing, shows that you're light years ahead of most other serial askers.
    – Robin
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 20:35
  • 3
    If you're seriously doing your own research first, following the guidelines of how to ask solid questions, and demonstrate that effort in your posts, then I don't care how many questions you ask, and I doubt many other will as well. When you're stuck, you're stuck. So long as you put in the effort to solve the issue yourself first, you'll be fine. (nice question, btw =P)
    – WhozCraig
    Commented Jul 4, 2014 at 3:28
  • I myself learn a lot just reading questions and answers even on technologies I don't use. Also, if you feel you know the answer to some question but can't develop much, you can still help by pointing people in the good direction through remarks for example. And if you still have some spare time, I myself spend quite a lot of time flagging/closing/downvoting questions that are not suitable for SO. This doesn't bring any reputation and only some badges here and there, but it's helping community too.
    – Laurent S.
    Commented Jul 4, 2014 at 7:05

8 Answers 8

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If I am meeting my responsibility of asking quality questions, and following up appropriately, I think I can assume that in itself is a contribution --- a good participating student is a benefit to other students.

Is this a fair view? Is there more I can do as a serial asker of questions?

Absolutely, you are fine. If your questions are on-topic and clear, and you stick around to help clarify issues you may have missed (and edit them into your question), no one will care that you don't answer questions. In fact, good questions encourage good answers, so you are contributing positively to the community.

Additionally, Stack Exchange recognizes that good questions are needed, so they just created a new badge series of "Asking Day" badges where you can earn a bronze, silver, and gold badge for just asking good questions. You can read more about them in Asking days badges

However, if you don't think it is enough, when you earn enough rep you can help moderate the site by reviewing posts by new users and help guide them to improve their questions.

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    +1, but I disagree with " good answers don't happen without good questions". There are excelent answers to poor questions, there's even a badge for that
    – Lamak
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 19:32
  • 10
    @Lamak Let's say then that as a rule of thumb "good questions encourage good answers".
    – Boaz
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 19:53
  • 1
    @Lamak that's a fair statement. And I think @ Boaz's choice of phrasing definitely deals with that issue.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 20:08
  • @Boaz I agree wholeheartedly
    – Lamak
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 20:10
  • @Chris and why does it bother you?
    – PleaseHelp
    Commented Jul 5, 2014 at 12:04
  • 1
    @Chris it is a happen of mine on meta for partially that reason. If the question is edited, it is to easier provide context for my answer. It also helps in multi part question or questions where the question is hidden within the post
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Jul 5, 2014 at 13:18
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Good questions are very valuable to Stack Overflow. So, yes, you're contributing significantly by asking good questions. Thanks, and please continue!

Also, please vote for good answers, vote against bad answers, and accept best answers. All these things help make Stack Overflow work properly.

Please look for questions like yours before asking yours. Vote for them, and vote for the answer or answer that helps you.

Keep this in mind: if you're asking good questions, you're ahead of the curve. You probably have some good answers to offer too. Don't withhold them because you're new.

Finally, please consider giving yourself a personalized username.

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You are not a leech so long as you:

  1. Listen when people offer advice
  2. Learn from mistakes

That's basically it. When we in the JS room critique code, the asker often thinks these are personal attacks. They are not. We love all programmers who are able to ask a clear question with research effort shown.

If you do that, your view will be grand, and before you know it (much like myself) you'll be answering many more questions than you ask.

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Yes, as long as you keep the quality of your questions high, and accept the answers that help you, that in itself is a valuable contribution to the site because those are questions other people can simply google for.

As a personal anecdote, I only started answering questions at a high rate less than 6-7 month ago, but I have been asking questions for three years. I have never had anyone object to this behavior before.

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For what it's worth, I'm a noob here myself and I think asking questions is more intimidating than answering them.

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    I've put together enough rep to start reviewing, and I still feel this way. ("I could ask, or I could build a JVM with debugging symbols and try to work it out myself... build the JVM.")
    – Jeffrey Bosboom
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 0:45
  • 6
    I suspect the reason is that we have a working system for dealing with bad answers -- they get a downvote or two, someone provides a good answer that gets upvoted, and the bad answer is in oblivion and everyone can forget about it including the person who wrote it. We don't yet have a working system to stop bad questions from upsetting people, so questions get scrutinised, discussed, categorised into a taxonomy of the kinds of bad, sometimes even raised on meta, etc. So the questioner gets a bit of grief and still has a problem to solve. Hence, intimidating.
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented Jul 3, 2014 at 9:19
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Leeching (in my opinion) is not when you ask a new question.

Leeching is when you:

  • Keep morphing the same question, confounding your answerers with a moving target

  • Ask the same question as if it were a new question, without deleting the original, because you felt you didn't get enough attention or you didn't like the criticisms / queries that arrived in comments

  • Keep piggybacking on the original question in comments, trying to carry on an extended series of additional questions, taking advantage of your answerers' apparent attention (aka "nagging")

Those are the things not to do.

So what should you do?

  1. Ask (be prepared to answer queries that arrive in comments)

  2. Accept / upvote an answer or even delete your original question if it proves unsatisfactory

  3. Ask a new question.

That is how to be a good citizen.

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  • "Ask the same question as if it were a new question, without deleting the original, because you felt you didn't get enough attention or you didn't like the criticisms / queries that arrived in comments" -- Ugh, I hate this. There should be a special penalty when your question is closed as a duplicate of one of your other questions.
    – Jeffrey Bosboom
    Commented Jul 4, 2014 at 17:18
  • @JeffreyBosboom I think if you do that and your rep is under 10 (it usually is, for people who do this) you should be thrown right off the site.
    – matt
    Commented Jul 4, 2014 at 18:43
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A Good question is always fine. I usually read 2-3 questions a day and it often help's me to learn new things.

'Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.'

Otto von Bismarck

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  • A corollary of this is "There is no wise without fools"
    – Emilio Garavaglia
    Commented Jul 10, 2014 at 9:50
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Others have already mentioned this, but it's so important that it can't hurt to repeat it: You provide a lot of value if you keep asking good questions. There's the obvious benefit of initiating the creation of questions/answers that will be helpful to others in the future.

There's another aspect: Well written and interesting questions provide enjoyment to those of us who come here to answer questions. Frankly, a lot of the questions I see are not well written, often have limited general usefulness, and are not very challenging. I sometimes still answer them partly because I want to help people, and also because I don't find enough great questions in the domains where I have the most knowledge. The more high quality questions are posted, the more it will attract people who enjoy answering great questions, which in turn makes the site better for everybody. I honestly don't know if I'll keep up my pace (I average about 3 answers a day) in the long run, and the main reason for my skepticism is the lack of good questions.

Just to be clear: When I talk about "great questions", that doesn't always have to mean that they need to be technically very advanced. It's at least as important that they meet all the other criteria for good questions. They are clear and well written, have enough scope without being too broad, they show that you have put thought and effort into the question, they are not duplicates, etc.

Beyond maximizing the quality of your questions, there are other ways to make positive contributions:

  • Upvote good questions and answers, and downvote bad ones.
  • Flag questions and answers that don't meet the quality standards.
  • Find and flag duplicates.
  • Suggest edits. Of course there's the "minor edit" caveat, so your edits should be thorough and substantial.
  • Once you mastered the skill of asking great questions, help others improve the quality of their questions by giving them constructive feedback and suggestions in comments.
  • After you accumulated some rep points, you can start working on an increasing number of review queues.

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