7 — Netiquette

Objectives

This journal covers the Netiquette unit of the Preparatory Materials.
Time estimated: 2 h; taken 2h ; date started: 2020-02-20; date completed: 2020-02-20

Process

This section was an easy read, I was able to reflect on my habits when posting questions to class forums.
Answers to the Self-Evaluation Questions:

1. Bad. Posting a screenshot of an error is more work for the reader to manually type the error when searching through Google. Also the poster should have tried to do a google search themselves before posting the question.
   
2. Bad. Zachary's question has to do with an error in downloading a package which is a completely different topic than searching for a specific function. Should be posted as a separate thread.
   
3. Good. Not needed. A direct response to someone's post, is more than enough to say you are directly addressing that person.

Conclusions and Outlook

Some of the important take-aways I found on this unit are:

• Including brief, yet informative subject lines when making a public post on a forum, or sending an email.
  
• Thread Hijacking - misusing other poster's threads by replying with new questions that divert from the original post's topic of interest.
  
• Reading all posted questions before coming up with your own (in case your question was already answered).
  
• Making the most of your post, and making your post useful for the readers to answer, and other students to learn off of, by providing the relevant information:
  
  • A process of what you did
    
  • MWE of the code snippet/ your solution (no screenshots)
    
  • Brief description of the error you faced (copy paste the error)
    
  • Showing the effort from your side, by asking thought-provoking questions. (ie. show that you really put some into the question before you even ask the question)
    
  • Acknowledge those that have helped out, those that have responded to your threads. Resolve threads that provide solutions.
    
• Ensure your question is well written, grammar, spelling, well explained, to efficiently get your point across to the reader. Not too wordy.
  
• Be patient when waiting for answers. Avoid reposting. Sometimes the readers are taking long, because they cannot come up with a helpful answer.
  
• Do not comment if you are not intending to help out.
  

External Resources

(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html