topic Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums? in SAS Programming

Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ScottBass — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 03:10:15 GMT

I've searched the library but couldn't find such an article.

Forum Admins: when a new user creates a profile, can you either paste such text into a reply, or at least send a link to said article?

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ScottBass — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 03:17:11 GMT

Well I found this:

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Support-Communities/How-to-ask-a-good-question-and-receive-a-fast-reply/ta-p/417192

It came up as the 1st tip as I typed in this post's subject. Weird that the same subject entered in the search text entry box doesn't get this hit?

However, that post needs more detail, like using the Insert SAS Code icon for SAS code so it can be cut-and-pasted into SAS, using the have (source) and want (target) dataset paradigm, etc.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ChrisNZ — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 05:15:27 GMT

> However, that post needs more detail, like using the Insert SAS Code icon for SAS code so it can be cut-and-pasted into SAS, using the have (source) and want (target) dataset paradigm, etc.

And pasting the posted code back into SAS to run it once and ensure it wasn't broken in the copy'and'paste process.

The links in @Kurt_Bremser 's footnote signature are also useful.

One might want the handful of such recommendations to be check boxes in the "Ask a new question" page, and all of them to have to be checked by the user (have you really read this?) before the "Post this question" button is ungreyed.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 05:18:43 GMT

@ChrisNZ wrote:

And pasting the posted code back into SAS to run it once and ensure it wasn't broken in the copy'and'paste process.

Really like that. I often find that "have" code does not work because some editor along the way replaced blanks with tabs, or similar.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ScottBass — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 00:14:47 GMT

@Kurt_Bremser

Ok, sorry for the ignorant question, but asking will make me less ignorant.

How do I add URL's to my forum signature?

Perhaps I can just add or replace your signature to mine (it's good) 🙂 With full attribution of course 😉

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ChrisNZ — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 00:21:43 GMT

@ScottBass Just add HTML code there. Mine looks like this

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 05:55:53 GMT

I'll try to post the signature code here:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<A href="https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Maxims-of-Maximally-Efficient-SAS-Programmers/ta-p/352068" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Maxims of Maximally Efficient SAS Programmers</A>

<A href="https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/How-to-create-a-data-step-version-of-your-data-AKA-generate/ta-p/258712" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">How to convert datasets to data steps</A>

<A href="https://gist.githubusercontent.com/statgeek/bcc55940dd825a13b9c8ca40a904cba9/raw/865d2cf18f5150b8e887218dde0fc3951d0ff15b/data2datastep.sas" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The macro for direct download</A>

<A href="https://communities.sas.com/t5/help/faqpage/faq-category-id/posting#posting" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">How to post code</A>

Please vote for <A href="https://communities.sas.com/t5/SASware-Ballot-Ideas/Enhancements-to-INFILE-FILE-to-handle-delimited-file-variations/idi-p/435977" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Enhancements to INFILE/FILE to handle delimited file variations</A>

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

PaigeMiller — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 15:42:26 GMT

@Kurt_Bremser wrote:

@ChrisNZ wrote:

And pasting the posted code back into SAS to run it once and ensure it wasn't broken in the copy'and'paste process.

Really like that. I often find that "have" code does not work because some editor along the way replaced blanks with tabs, or similar.

Or non-curly quotes replaced with curly quotes.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

PaigeMiller — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 15:50:25 GMT

@ScottBass I like your thought process and your suggestions, but I am also very skeptical that they will make the slightest bit of difference. Why? I have been involved in the SAS Communities since October of 1582, and in many other on-line forums providing user-to-user technical support on other products. I have seen similar efforts throughout the years, and unfortunately, they don't make any difference at all ... new people don't know how to ask questions, but they think they do, and so they don't read the advice and then those of us in the forums (like @Kurt_Bremser and @ChrisNZ and myself and many many others) have to jump in and enforce some sort of basic standards by asking nicely and pleading and insisting (sometimes repeatedly) for the questioner to comply with accepted standards and ask clear questions and provide the data/code in a usable form, and so on and so forth.

Nevertheless, I hope it works this time. You have my support.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ChrisNZ — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 22:30:59 GMT

I share @PaigeMiller 's skepticism, but options are limited to ensure progress on this front, for the benefit of poster and helpers alike.

Hence my suggestion that the handful of recommendations be check boxes in the "Ask a new question" page.

Once all the boxes are checked by the user, the "Post this question" button is ungreyed.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

PaigeMiller — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 22:37:04 GMT

How many people read license agreements before they check the box that says "I agree"? The check box won't force people to actually read and follow the advice given.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ChrisNZ — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 22:47:38 GMT

How many people read license agreements before they check the box that says "I agree"? The check box won't force people to actually read and follow the advice given.

Agreed, but then

1. Options are limited

2. There is no harm doing it (except maybe looking a bit bureaucratic)

3. The validation text to read is a one-liner, so not in the EULA legalistic non-sense territory

4. Even if only one recommendation is followed because of this last validation -like use {i} -, it's still a win

5. There can be no valid "I didn't know I had to post my code this way" reply

Another option is that repliers (not the right word apparently-answerers?-) are stricter and stop trying to second-guess the data and the intent, and only provide solutions when efforts have been made by posters to help themselves.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

PaigeMiller — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 22:54:02 GMT

@ChrisNZ wrote:

How many people read license agreements before they check the box that says "I agree"? The check box won't force people to actually read and follow the advice given.

Agreed, but then

1. Options are limited

2. There is no harm doing it (except maybe looking a bit bureaucratic)

3. The validation text to read is a one-liner, so not in the EULA legalistic non-sense territory

4. Even if only one recommendation is followed because of this last validation -like use {i} -, it's still a win

5. There can be no valid "I didn't know I had to post my code this way" reply

All good points. I'm not opposed to the effort of trying this, I'm just extremely skeptical.

Another option is that repliers (not the right word apparently-answerers?-) are stricter and stop trying to second-guess the data and the intent, and only provide solutions when efforts have been made by posters to help themselves.

Which would make the SAS Communities more unfriendly to newbies. Which is probably not a direction to go in.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ChrisNZ — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 23:11:17 GMT

Which would make the SAS Communities more unfriendly to newbies. Which is probably not a direction to go in.

True. The opposite risk is that knowledgeable people tire of spending too much time trying to get a proper question, and start bothering less.

At the moment, the onus is on highly skilled experts to spend a lot of time on clerical and throw-away work rather than on adding the value they came here to add.

If that goodwill dries up because we don't push basic requirements on help seekers, the community is in much direr straights than anything we can do to "make the SAS Communities more unfriendly to newbies."

This is not happening now (though this thread and others are a sign of impatience), but we should be careful about taking people for granted just because they haven't complained so far. Especially the most valuable people. Their motivation may drop, their interest may shift, their feeling of adding value may become too low.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ScottBass — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 05:21:15 GMT

@ChrisNZ wrote:

Which would make the SAS Communities more unfriendly to newbies. Which is probably not a direction to go in.

True. The opposite risk is that knowledgeable people tire of spending too much time trying to get a proper question, and start bothering less.

At the moment, the onus is on highly skilled experts to spend a lot of time on clerical and throw-away work rather than on adding the value they came here to add.

If that goodwill dries up because we don't push basic requirements on help seekers, the community is in much direr straights than anything we can do to "make the SAS Communities more unfriendly to newbies."

This is not happening now (though this thread and others are a sign of impatience), but we should be careful about taking people for granted just because they haven't complained so far. Especially the most valuable people. Their motivation may drop, their interest may shift, their feeling of adding value may become too low.

Thanks for all the discussion. And yeah @PaigeMiller is probably right. I guess I want a solid, complete library article that I can bookmark, and when a noob posts a question, I can just paste that URL in my reply and move on.

It just seems there are a lot of noobs lately that don't know how to ask a question...I mean literally don't know how to ask a question in an online forum, let alone how to format one. And as is obvious from my recent attempts at being the "post police", it's getting up my craw (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/stick-in-one-s-craw).

They will, with time and experience, learn how to ask a question. I was there once, too many years ago. But if they can at least make it easy for me to run their code, that would really be nice.

At the moment, the onus is on highly skilled experts to spend a lot of time on clerical and throw-away work rather than on adding the value they came here to add.

If that goodwill dries up because we don't push basic requirements on help seekers,

Yeah, I'm out. I need to follow my own signature block. If I can't paste their code into SAS and have it run without error, I'm off to the next question, even though I actually like answering questions (when I have the time). I like the challenge, their questions often help me learn as well, and can be fun - yeah I'm weird that way.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

PaigeMiller — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 10:44:53 GMT

@ChrisNZ wrote:

Which would make the SAS Communities more unfriendly to newbies. Which is probably not a direction to go in.

True. The opposite risk is that knowledgeable people tire of spending too much time trying to get a proper question, and start bothering less.

I'm sure this is happening already. I know I (and probably others) avoid certain people's posts because they have been consistently not complying with simple requests to post data in a certain form, to show the desired output, etc. Or they can't ask a question clearly. And even if it is not one of those people, if I have to ask several times for something to be provided, and its not provided, I usually just drop out of the thread. Its not worth it to me. Another thing that really bothers me is people who do not provide meaningful titles, the title to their post is "SAS" or "Need SAS Help". I skip a lot of those posts, other times I ask the person to go back to their first post and provide a meaningful title, and most of the time that doesn't happen..

At the moment, the onus is on highly skilled experts to spend a lot of time on clerical and throw-away work rather than on adding the value they came here to add.

Yes, good point. It would be nice if more effort was spent by SAS on this task; after all, the forums benefit (which means SAS benefits) if people are expected to comply with certain minimum standards. After all right now we do it, and when we do it, we are helping SAS Communities become a more successful place, which in the long run ought to make SAS a more profitable company, yet there's no reward for us, other than the internal satisfaction that we get when we help someone solve a problem. (And I don't consider it a reward to find out the I have made the jump from "Respected Advisor" to "Bedazzled Advisor")

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 10:58:56 GMT

There's one bad thing I have noticed with the forum interface: in the mobile version, the necessary buttons for posting special text are simply not there.

The communities should open on all devices in full mode, and the mobile mode should only be provided as a backstop. Or the mobile mode needs to provide the same posting methods.

At the moment I am using full mode on my tablet, just for clarification, and I even use it on my cellphone.

Re: Is there a library article on how to ask a good question in this (and other CSC) forums?

ChrisNZ — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 02:43:53 GMT

Another note to add/enforce is on the "Create a new Post" page is:

No MS Office files. Images can be posted in the post, logs can be posted as text, etc.