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Forum patterns: The problem of the lost usecase when asking questions on a forum
By frank.nimphius | April 8, 2008
There are many good hints floating around on the Internet as of how to ask questions on a public forum. We too have such a document that Shay Shmeltzer put together to help OTN forum users to turn a question into a successful question with a good chance for a sufficient answer. One issue I observe with many postings to public forums - not just ours - is what I call the “lost usecase” problem.
In this deadline driven world - as it seems IT land is - people grasp to specific implementations like they were rafts in wild waters and the only piece of wood that prevents them from drowning. Because of this, questions often describe a failed implementation detail instead of the usecase it is supposed to solve.
To give you an example. If the usecase is to open a bottle of water and to drink from it, then the failed technical implementation posted to the vendor’s help list could be: I drilled a hole into the bottle cap and have issues: a) water is not coming out and b) my mouth is bleeding. How can I stop the bleeding ?
I know, I am exaggerating, but this is how I see many questions asked. Of course its not bad to talk and ask about implementation details, but always keep in mind that the guy (or girl) on the other end needs to understand the core of the problem to turn the raft around, leading it to calm waters. This also means to break down a big problems into chunks of smaller and make sure they are described as usecases of their own.
Another good skill to learn is to create a simple testcase for the usecase, stripping a problem down to the reproducible core. In the past, I had the pleasure to work with people on the OTN forum that have this skill. It not only saved me time in looking at their issue, it also gave me a testcase to pass on to development in cases where there was a bug to file.
So if there exist anti patterns for posting to help forums, then the “lost usecase problem” is one of them.
Frank
Topics: General News, Forum Patterns |
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