The will to help depends on how you present yourself - egoistic demanding or engaged having done the easy things yourSELF

This forum can be a great source of help.
The will of other users to help and answer a question depends on how you present yourself

With your first 2 or 3 postings you create a picture how you are.
This could be:

  • egoistic demanding
  • lazy
  • very committed trying to make it easy to help

What do you think. Which users asking for help will get their questions answered?

Yes of course the ones that are at least somehow engaged by:

    • describing their project pretty detailed
    • providing links to datasheets of used components
    • providing a schematic that follow the rules of professional schematic-drawing
      (this can surely be non-professional hand-drawn but following the rules.)
    • if users are asking for details answering these questions.

There is a neverending stream of new questions and new postings every hour.
In some way your question is in competetion with all the other questions / postings.
What do you think which questions will be answered quickly because it is fun to answer them?

Yes you are right:

The questions of people that created a picture of being

  • very committed trying to make it easy to help
    and users that fullfill the criteria 1 to 4 like described above.

If you want to proceed quick you have to

fill in the high-tech-fuel into the racecar instead of running on your own feet.
Even if this means to go to a shop buying the high-tech-fuel.

= invest some time into fullfilling these criteria.
In the end this will be faster.

If you want to read more details how to do this please read

Of course for some people it is the greatest joy to whirl at high RPM without moving forward. If this is what you really want to do. Post short postings alternating with wildly trying out whether the program works if you change this or that detail.

But make sure to never read documentation or tutorials. If you read documentation or tutorials you are in danger of proceeding and finishing your project!

This will kill the joy of whirling at high RPM without moving forward.

So make a decision what brings the joy to you and then do it.

best regards Stefan
(remark: I wanted to create a posting that I can link to if nescessary)

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We certainly see plenty of posts lacking enough detail for any help to be provided. Sadly these can turn into complaints about how rude and unhelpful the forum denizens are when they try to pry out more information.

A part of the problem, I suspect is that being able to analyze a complex problem and present the salient points when seeking help is a skill in itself and applies to many fields, not just Arduino. It seems that many posters, especially the younger ones, have not yet learned how to do this and it puts them in a double bind. Triple if they take offense at attempts to assist with sorting out what the problem actually is.

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Hi @wildbill

Yes I agree. There is another double-bind for the users that want to help:
If a newcomer is in a hurry she/he doesn't want to read a long article.
Though explaining what they should write needs a rather big "minimum" of words.

My approach to solve this is to use everyday pictures that explain this ideally with just a few words. Though I haven't found (yet) this very short and easy to understand everyday example that explains this.

Right now I'm thinking maybe a funny picture that is illustrating this could be helpful.
Though I don't have an idea (yet) what such a picture would show.

best regards Stefan

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