Howtos/Asking a question on forums

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How to ask a question? Appropriate asking may have quick and correct solution for your problem. This page is not asking you to ask in exact way which describe here, you can feel free to ask on bbPress forums.

Contents

[edit] Before asking

[edit] Try to self-solve

[edit] Up to date or out of date

You may use out of date bbPress, that may has some bugs but already been fixed. Try to upgrade, remember to backup database before upgrading. If you are not sure, then don't upgrade.

This also mean WordPress version, if you are doing a integration; and theme being developed on what version of bbPress.

[edit] Go back to defaults

When problems happening, please make sure that also happens on default settings. You need to, at least,

  1. go back to default theme (Kakumei),
  2. deactivate all plugins including WordPress plugins if integrated,

Also if possibly, revert some related settings in config.php. You may need to clean up the browser's cache and/or cookies, you can try to press Ctrl + F5 or Ctrl + R for cleaning up cache. Some ISP or use of proxy server may still send the old data to your browser, you may need to wait for a while for changes.

[edit] Read official documentations

Please try to read related documentations again, make sure you didn't miss any part of them. You can find them in:

[edit] Search an answer

[edit] bbPress Forums

Keywords do matter what you can get, how to search? For example, if you have problem with database connection, then you can try 

database mysql_get_server_info() line 80

mysql_get_server_info() line 80 is actually part of the error message, try to use part of or whole error message for searching could be very useful.

[edit] WordPress Support

If your question involves integration of WordPress and bbPress, then you can also try to search on WordPress Support.

[edit] Google

Although bbPress Forums should have the most amount of questions, but there still are some outside of it. When search via Google, you need to append bbpress and start from using complete error message. If you can't get the right answer, try to remove some keywords, leave essential keywords only.

[edit] Trac Tickets

Trac is a place which has information about development, such as bug tracker, source browser, etc. Your problem may already be filed in tickets, even it has been fixed but not yet releasing. If that happens, read all comments of ticket. You can also download a patch from ticket page for a temporary fix. Please also send a feedback to developers for results after patching. You can use bbPress username/password to log into Trac.

You can start a query, add a filter, usually a Summary filter.

[edit] Preparing a question

First thing is opening a text editor, and compose you question in it. The text box on any forums is not suitable to write a question. You need to gather few informations (not all of them):

  • Web server running environments
    • bbPress and WordPress versions ans installtion paths
    • .htaccess, if involves links not working
    • A link to the problem forums - This allows other users to see and that makes them more easier to spot the cause
  • Complete error messages from reading in browser
  • Web server's error logs after the problem happens - You usually can find a "Error Logs" in cPanel, or something like /var/log/httpd/error.log
  • config.php - Remember to remove database username and password.
  • Status of plugins

If your question isn't about something broken, but asking for theme modifications, plugins, etc.

  • You may need to provide some information mentioned above.
  • Try to visualize your question, like a drawing

Resources you can use:

  • Refer to source, you can get a link from those line numbers for a specific line.
  • Pastebin - If you need to paste config.php.

You may also need to describe what did you do before problem happening and what you have tried for solving the probelm.

Put all stuff in text editor, and well formatting them, read them twice. Make your question can be read clearly and you perfectly understand what you just write.

Choose a clear title! Please don't use irrelavent words in title.

Lastly, post it.

[edit] After asking

After you posting your question, please be patient. That may take several days to get a reply. While waiting for an answer, if you have any updates of your question, please also reply to your topic with updates.

No need to bump your topic, or use "urgent", "need to be fixed soon", "anyone?". When other users read your topic, they will try to answer in their own way. They may want to ensure their solution is really working, so they don't reply immediately, but they will eventually.

[edit] Final note

Again, this page is not asking you to ask in exact way which describe here, you can feel free to ask on bbPress forums. You can also try to ask in #bbpress at irc.freenode.net.

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