Post Guidelines When Seeking Help?

patrickj · 03-30-2008, 10:17 PM

This may be stickied somewhere already - if so, apologies and mods can kill this one, but I did not see it anywhere in the FAQ section.

I think it would help - a lot - if there were a few basic, common sense guidelines for how to post when you need help with an iPhone issue. Seems to me a starting point might be a few good Do's and Don'ts - simple things that will help some of the more experienced users to help novice users more quickly and wade through less junk in doing so - everybody wins:

Do ... Make your post title as clear as possible as to what kind of problem you have. Things like 'Uninstall of ABC Program Fails', or 'Cannot Establish SSH Connection to iPhone' or similar - so veteran users can tell at a glance whether it's a subject they may be able to help with.

Don't .. hit us with 100% vague post titles - like 'Help!!!!' or 'OMG, Someone Please Help' or variations of these.

Do ... Give as much detail as possible about your issue - things like what you were doing when it occurred or directly beforehand (problem started right after I installed XYZ program for example), exact error messages that you got, anything you have already tried by way of fixing the issue etc.

Don't ... be rushed and give a completely vague description of events that led to your problem - saying 'So I was restoring and I got some scary error and then it all went south and now I can't even get to the home screen' really doesn't give any of us a clue as to: restoring to which firmware?, what the error was or when in the restore process you got it, or what happened after the error - so it will take someone twice as long to try to help with it.

Do ... state whether your phone is jailbroken or not on any issues where this may be relevant.

Do ... name your firmware version if you know what it is - as this may be relevant to your question

Probably plenty more should be added to these, that's just maybe a start, if anyone else thinks this is a worthwhile little exercise ...

ColsTiger · 03-30-2008, 11:38 PM

Do post in the correct forum - If you have questions about unlocking/jailbreaking your iphone, post your questions in the iPhone Modifications forum. On the other hand, if you have a question about the apps in the stock iPHone firmware or just questions about the iphone in general, post in the iPHone forum.

Bone · 03-31-2008, 01:01 AM

I like the post but mostlikly it won't help much because people with problems dont like to read. All they want is a direct magical asnwer imeadiatly on how to fix it. My favorite title is always "Help! I bricked my phone!" LOL

Lincoln · 03-31-2008, 06:58 PM

Do specify if you're using a Mac or PC. - There are different methods for almost everything depending on what kind of computer you have.

I've sent several PM's back and forth having to ask whether or not a user uses a Mac or PC.

- John

Kabeyun · 03-31-2008, 09:35 PM

Originally Posted by ifonebone

I like the post but mostlikly it won't help much because people with problems dont like to read. All they want is a direct magical asnwer imeadiatly on how to fix it. My favorite title is always "Help! I bricked my phone!" LOL

Yes. Only the lazy or illiterate have problems.

And no one's ever accidentally missed a hit with a search engine.

-K