How NOT to ask for help
Tags: discuss, beginners, healthydebate
Published: 2019-04-05 19:41:23

[Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming](https://stackoverflow.blog/2018/04/26/stack-overflow-isnt-very-welcoming-its-time-for-that-to-change/). However an environment does not become toxic on it's own. The people who uses the platform along with unwritten laws keeps making things worse for developers and newbies. 

Everyone knows about it, them too!

![](https://i.imgur.com/Itw7d2V.png)

One thing before I continue,

> **IF YOU’RE A BEGINNER, JUST IGNORE THE TOXIC WORDS.**

Every now and then I would review and answer questions on stackoverflow regarding web scraping and puppeteer. And I know how much toxic stackoverflow can be.

Me? No I am not Jon Skeet, I am just a small human with mere 5k reputation on SO. Many doesn't even know my name. 

![](https://i.imgur.com/dUt7agI.png)

The toxic environment is on both side. Newbies feels overwhelmed. However I can certainly feel the rules and regulations are there to stop wasting everyone's time. Everything you write on stackoverflow will help someone in future just like someone else's answer helps you.

If you want to ask for help, be prepared to get rejected. You have to learn through rejection. Maybe your question will be bad, maybe it's already answered many times before. 

This applies to any and every platform, no matter how newbie-friendly they are, it's chaotic whenever there are thousands of people involved. This also does not mean the platform is toxic. There are happy and grateful people who asks valid questions and get proper answer.

Here are some important points to avoid when asking for help.

## "Can you please write the whole damn code for me?"

> QUESTION: I have Javascript puppeteer code, and PuppeteerSharp for C#. I know that this libraries are similar, and i know their sites. But my problem that i barely can manage this libraries, there are alot of methods for each lib, and it hard to find needed methods, even i have working example written on JS. **Please help me rewrite JS code to C#**, so it would do similar things. Or at least function names, for example JS (puppeteer) method = C# (puppeteerSharp) method.

This question asks for help. It's good that they asked for help, asking takes courage. However, no, the people on the internet does not have time or will to work for free. You need to find a very specific problem and ask about it. 

## "I cannot share my code nor my research done till now. Heck I cannot even share my problem."

![](http://i.imgur.com/9Aqh37n.png)

Kindly no! Please do share what you did till now! Please tell us where you stuck. We do not know mind reading. We need to understand what's wrong and how we can help.

It shows us your research and effort. We are more willing to help those who works hard. Your research will help you and others who comes to same problem.

## "Can you solve all problems I mentioned?"

All questions on same page,

- Why it shows infinite while loop?
- What is promise.all?
- Where do I get $$?
- How to get outerHTML?
- ...

All these shows us you did not do a single research, took a big project/task you were not supposed to take and feeling overwhelmed.

Actually it's better if you can break your problem into multiple chunks. Do not bombard the whole page with questions, you will get downvoted right away. If you split the problems into pieces, it will help others know exactly where to help. Maybe multiple people will help about multiple sub-topics.

## Summary

Yes, that's all. Internet is full of toxic people. And if you want to learn within that, you need to know **how to ask for help**,
- Do your research.
- Ask very specific questions.
- Value time, yours and others.
- Respect people.
- Share your knowledge.

Have fun programming!