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so I joined Stack Overflow last week to get one of my questions answered. However, it took me almost an hour to just understand how to form the question (formatting the code so that it would show up as code was probably the hardest part)

What I am suggesting is that Stack Overflow could make some tutorials on how to ask questions on Stack Overflow. They could also go over how questions should be formed, what should and should not be included in it; basically the ethics of asking a question properly on Stack Overflow.

What do you guys think? I feel new users could greatly benefit from this based on my own first hand experience.

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  • What's wrong with the tour page? It does still link to the Help Center, which has all the needed info.
    – Jamal
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 4:14
  • Yeah, but I feel it would make things easier to understand if we could see an experienced StackOverflow member demonstrate asking a sample question, explaining how the badge and reputation system works, etc... over video. I am not doubting or ill-crediting the tour page; it is great and it helped me a lot @Jamal, but it makes it a whole lot easier to comprehend what something is about if we can see it being demonstrated in front of us.
    – BusyProgrammer
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 4:18
  • There's also the issue of not everyone bothering to read it, especially if there's a lot of info given right away. There are unfortunately always going to be new users who'd much rather post their poorly-written question and leave for a while.
    – Jamal
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 4:20
  • @Jamal You make a point, but the point is kind of sad. Do people need to be redirected to series of places just to discover a particularly thing? I don't know - but I think the tour does an okay job. Having exemplars that are immediately available when a user asks a first question sounds like a great idea to me.
    – Zizouz212
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 4:20
  • @Zizouz212 Even a 5 minute video could do the job.
    – BusyProgrammer
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 4:33
  • Meh, a video sounds a little bit overkill. Maybe a quick animated thing? You don't want to distract from it or take the users time, but make sure you have enough so that they get the fundamentals of asking a question.
    – Zizouz212
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 4:34
  • @Zizouz212 That would also be a great idea!
    – BusyProgrammer
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 4:35
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    Here's a whole pluralsight course on using Stack Overflow: pluralsight.com/courses/using-stackoverflow-stackexchange-sites
    – Oded
    Commented Dec 23, 2016 at 13:05
  • To whoever downvoted this 2 month post, I would appreciate a reason why it was downvoted.
    – BusyProgrammer
    Commented Feb 20, 2017 at 15:42

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