Does anyone have any best practices on how to ask a good question and what to put in the body?

thaas
thaas Member ✭✭
edited September 2022 in Managing Communities #1

I want to provide our audience with a short tutorial to help them get quicker/better responses in our Q+A community. I'm looking for any best practices you've seen work on how to write/phrase questions appropriately and what type of information is valuable to consider in the body

Best Answer

  • Rav Singh
    Rav Singh Member ✭✭✭
    edited September 2022 #2 Answer ✓

    Hi @thaas

    While I've created lots of content focusing on how to use our Community and its features I certainly need to do a refresher on this for our users as well. Its a number of years old now (before we switched to Vanilla) however one of our superusers created a good intro article containing tips on how to ask a question and encouraging sharing as much info as possible since our Community is product support-centric.

    I'll share it below if you're interested however you've given me the impetus to give it a revamp that is more focused (and relevant now that we're on Vanilla).


Answers

  • Rav Singh
    Rav Singh Member ✭✭✭
    edited September 2022 #3 Answer ✓

    Hi @thaas

    While I've created lots of content focusing on how to use our Community and its features I certainly need to do a refresher on this for our users as well. Its a number of years old now (before we switched to Vanilla) however one of our superusers created a good intro article containing tips on how to ask a question and encouraging sharing as much info as possible since our Community is product support-centric.

    I'll share it below if you're interested however you've given me the impetus to give it a revamp that is more focused (and relevant now that we're on Vanilla).


  • thaas
    thaas Member ✭✭

    Hi @Rav Singh - thank you for sharing this. It is helpful and also validating. I was starting down a very similar path and this has given me more ideas.

    Here are some points I captured while doing some other research. Not sure if any will be helpful to you but thought I would share:

    Writing good questions isn't always easy. Here are some tips that may help you:

    • Keep your questions simple - long compound questions force respondents to keep a lot of information in their heads and are likely to produce unpredictable results. Use the body to expand upon what you need
    • If a question can be misinterpreted, it will be - Be clear, concise, and always beware of imprecise language
    • Include only one topic per question (avoid "double-barreled" questions) - If you want to be able to come up with specific recommended actions, you need specific questions
    • Make sure the respondent has enough information - use the body to provide additional 
    • Pay attention to the category you are picking
    • Use tags


    Poorly written questions may result in 

    • answer(s) you aren't looking for
    • additional time is taken to rephrase, provide clarification, or add more details
    • frustrated respondents


  • BrendanP
    BrendanP Moderator, Higher Logic Vanilla Staff mod

    Another potential idea is to use the discussion template addon to include some info you would be expecting folks to include when they ask their question.

    I referenced it here in another thread:

    support/csm/implementation pm could enable and advise you on that feature if you want to test it out.

  • thaas
    thaas Member ✭✭

    @BrendanP - thank you. @hannahhowle got us set up with the template yesterday and I'm currently testing it out