Stack Overflow question checklist

Jon Skeet's coding blog

Note: this post is now available with a tinyurl of http://tinyurl.com/stack-checklist

My earlier post on how to write a good question is pretty long, and I suspect that even when I refer people to it, often they don’t bother reading it. So here’s a short list of questions to check after you’ve written a question (and to think about before you write the question):

Have you done some research before asking the question? ¹

Have you explained what you’ve already tried to solve your problem?

Have you specified which language and platform you’re using, including version number where relevant?

If your question includes code, have you written it as a short but complete program? ²

If your question includes code, have you checked that it’s correctly formatted? ³

If your code doesn’t compile, have you included the exact compiler error?

If your question doesn’t include code, are you sure it…

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