I'm a newbie, where should I post my question?

First ... please do NOT post a question in this Introductory Tutorials section.
Second ... ONLY post your question in one section.

If English is not your first language you may wish to post your question in one of the language specific sections of the Forum.

If you do propose to ask your question in English then ...

If you are not sure where to post your question then the best place is in the Project Guidance section of the Forum. Questions in Project Guidance can involve hardware and/or software.

If your question is specifically about a problem with program code then the Programming section would be better. Make sure to include your program code with your question.

There are many other sections of the Forum for more specific topics. If you know that your question fits best into one of those sections then by all means post your question there.

Before posting your first question it is a good idea to read several existing Topics (even if they are not directly relevant to your problem) to get a sense of how the Forum operates.

And please read How to use the Forum

...R

PS ... Prompted by a question it occurred to me that this may be useful as a Locked Sticky at the top of the Introductory Tutorials section

If this idea finds favour I will delete all of this PS

If nobody likes it I am quite happy to delete the whole thing

Comments are welcome.

Hi R2.

Only issue I have with your idea is the STICKY.

There are lots of stickies and in some cases IMHO too many at the top.

Maybe a limit of 3-5.

Still of the thought that new users should be somehow forced / guided through some of them.
Being a member of the big stick brigade you know where my path would be :wink:

Maybe a simple pop up box asking if they have read the posting guides that they have to clear before posting by clicking YES.

We go over this and very similar topics almost 3/4 times a year and we are still not much further ahead than when the first were posted.

ballscrewbob:
Hi R2.

Only issue I have with your idea is the STICKY.

There are lots of stickies and in some cases IMHO too many at the top.

As you are the only person that has been sufficiently interested to comment I guess my idea has not been attractive so I propose to do nothing more about it.

...R

PS ... I agree with you about too-many stickies - at the moment there are only 2.

In here just two yes.

Some of the stickies I think could be unified (not just merged) in some sections.

Some others need updates too I think to reflect what we now know about common issues such as USB 3.0 and Antivirus issues etc.

Hi Robin,

I would have chimed in sooner, but I only read this section every month or so...

I DO think it should be a sticky. (More-so than Valentina, the Arduino marketing person's post - which was made a sticky by the invisible administrators - for sure.) It addresses one of the biggest problems to newbs here at arduino.cc. When a question gets moved, many fewer people follow the moved vector to the new location. Posting in Guidance is probably the best way for most newbs to get help. Many beginners do not realize what part of their issue is from hardware, and what part is from software.

Making more sticky won't help anything. The problem isn't that the information isn't convenient enough. The problem is that people don't even bother to look. It could be at the top of each page in 24 point flashing font and still these noobs would skip it. Think about it, if they were the kind to read first and ask second then how many less questions would we see here. They think they already know everything and nobody want directions. the only way you're going to make them read anything is to make them pass a quiz on it before they're allowed to post and I think that would end up hurting more than it helps.

Delta_G:
Making more sticky won't help anything. The problem isn't that the information isn't convenient enough. The problem is that people don't even bother to look. It could be at the top of each page in 24 point flashing font and still these noobs would skip it. Think about it, if they were the kind to read first and ask second then how many less questions would we see here. They think they already know everything and nobody want directions. the only way you're going to make them read anything is to make them pass a quiz on it before they're allowed to post and I think that would end up hurting more than it helps.

Sticky posts are much easier to refer to for those of us who refer to such things in response to questions. I concur though that many newbies won't read stickies. That's because they are in a hurry, and don't feel that information they find without guidance will be relevant to their particular issue.

ChrisTenone:
That's because they are in a hurry, and don't feel that information they find without guidance will be relevant to their particular issue.

My idea is that the Title of this Thread (in the form of a question) may be more likely to lead people in as compared with Titles that tell people what not to do.

...R

Robin2:
My idea is that the Title of this Thread (in the form of a question) may be more likely to lead people in as compared with Titles that tell people what not to do.

...R

I get your thinking, but I don't think anyone ever reads either title. They just look for the New Topic button. Now you could make it so that the New Topic button opens this up. That might get people to read it. But then how to create a new topic.

Delta_G:
I get your thinking, but I don't think anyone ever reads either title. They just look for the New Topic button. Now you could make it so that the New Topic button opens this up. That might get people to read it. But then how to create a new topic.

That was my thinking too.

A POP UP box that says something along the lines of "have you read the posting guidelines" and YES NO options where if they click YES it opens the new topic OR if they click NO then it will open the guidelines page.
Not perfect I know but a starting point and I suspect that some will actually click NO although the majority will click YES.

Those who click YES without having read guidelines would often stand out like a sore thumb.

Even the small amount who click YES will reduce some of the crazy !

I think we should put in a clause along the lines of the Southpark episode about the Human Cent-I-pad. If you don't use code tags we reserve the right to do horrible medical experiments on you. Not only will people quickly learn to take the forum rules seriously, but we'll have some cool pets as well.

Part of the problem is that people won't read, I used to help on another forum and many times a person would open a NEW thread when there were 3 or 4 identical threads VISIBLE ON THE FRONT PAGE!!!

Yes the look back in the forum is good advice but one that seems to not be taken. When I started here (an other forums) on way I found to learn quickly was to page back and read other threads on different subjects and hints on how to do different things

thanks

Perehama:
For those of us that DO use this forum daily, an up or down vote on a thread in lieu of a sticky would allow the collective to vote up a thread of popular relevance, and that would be only one method of sorting posts. Default could still be by date. Those that want to refer to a golden post could sort by votes and find it quickly.

This looks like a suggestion for a change to the way the Forum works. If so it will be more appropriate in the Website and Forum section.

In any case I don't think having it here will help a newbie to decide where to post his/her question.

...R