What is the best way to ask a question at WikiAnswers?

Answer

When asking a question at the Q&A pages, there are some good practices to bear in mind that will help your question to be answered faster by someone who has knowledge of the subject. On the other hand there are some bad practices that make it unlikely you would receive a good and fast answer.

Below are some recommendations from WikiAnswers Supervisors to help you understand the ins and outs of properly posting and editing Q&As and effectively communicating with other contributors. They are not meant to replace the official WikiAnswers Terms of Use or other WikiAnswers guidelines as presented in our detailed Help Center.

The not so good practices

Avoid asking questions in the following ways:

Vandalism

Do not post vandalism or nonsense, it is just a waste of your time, those questions will not stay long, Supervisors and other editors patrol constantly deleting vandalism and your IP will be blocked.

Excessively long questions

Try to keep your questions to a reasonable length. In some cases you can split a long question into more than one shorter questions.

Abbreviations and slang

Try to write the question as clearly as possible, avoid abbreviations, common slang and internet slang. Use "you" instead of "u" and don't use "I am", "Im" or "I'm".

Questions that may be considered harmful, inmoral or offensive

Do not post questions that will be deleted, it is just a waste of your time. Such questions will not stay long. Supervisors and other editors patrol constantly deleting such questions.

Questions leading to advertising

Avoid asking questions with the purpose of answering them with information leading to sites or products you want to advertise. That will be considered SPAM and you may be blocked.

Personalization

Avoid the use of signatures and any personal data in your questions.

WikiAnswers is not a quiz or trivia

Please do not post questions just to check how much WikiAnswers contributors know or to challenge whoever may answer. That would be taking the time of contributors who should be answering genuine questions that are really important to the people who posted them. However, feel free to ask questions concerning things which are important to you or which you are curious about.

The good practices

Your question will receive faster answers and will be more easily seen by those who know about the subject if you try to:

Place the question under the right category

Place your question in the right category or topic. If you leave it at the wrong place or in a general information category, it may take some time until your question is seen by someone who knows about the subject.

Avoid duplicate questions

Try to make sure that your question has not been asked and answered already, perhaps with other question wording.

Be clear

To help you to get a quicker and better answer your question should be asked clearly! So please check that the question is as clear as possible before you submit it. If the question seems confusing you may consider rewording it in another way or splitting it into more than one question.

Disclaimer

Keep in mind that WikiAnswers' editors may answer your question and, depending on the question, that will be done as soon and as accurately as possible. Nevertheless, this is a Wiki community and sometimes it can happen that a question receives a nonsense, vandalized or incorrect answer. Supervisors and editors are permanently checking the quality of answers and deleting spam and vandalism but nevertheless it can happen. If you experience this, do not get discouraged, wait a couple of days and check the answer again, it might be corrected by then.

This answer is closed to changes. This is done in rare cases when questions are being vandalized or answers have become debates. Email WikiAnswers @ Answers.com if you would like it to be reopened.

First answer by WikiWand. Last edit by Martinel. Contributor trust: 185 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 6 [recommend question]