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Help improve the question

We’ve given a bunch of advice on how to ask a good question on this site, but it might be the case that the person asking a question doesn’t yet have enough experience with these practices. If that’s the case, one of the best things you can do is guide the asker toward improvements that help drive the question to the point where it can be answered.

Be slow to downvote​

A downvote can be deeply frustrating to the person asking the question. Furthermore, without feedback about why the question earned the downvote, the asker has no clear path to improvement. If you feel the question could be improved, try this instead:

  1. Before downvoting, leave a comment explaining what you found problematic.
  2. If the problem isn’t addressed in a few hours, then downvote.
  3. If the problem is addressed, be sure to reverse your prior downvote by clicking the downvote button again.

While this is certainly more work, it also can improve the overall quality of the content of the site and minimize hurt feelings in the process. A downvote doesn’t teach any lessons, but a helpful comment might.

Explain what you find problematic​

The person asking the question is likely not able to see the problems with the question that you might see. What you can do in a comment is explain the problems as you see them. Phrasing is important here. Avoid making broad judgments like “this is a bad question”. Instead, state your experience with trying to read and understand it. For example, these are all valid observations:

  • “I am having problems understanding what the question is.”
  • “The screenshot you provided is difficult for me to read.”
  • “There isn’t enough information in the question to understand how this code works.”

If you make observations like this, you should also offer suggestions for improvement, otherwise you could come across as critical and unhelpful, even if you mean well.

Comment with suggestions for improvement​

Kindly offer suggestions to address any problem you observe with the question. For the above three observations, these could be suggestions for improvement:

  • “Could you explain in more detail the problem you’re having with the code. Is there an error? How are you observing that?”
  • “Please don’t show screenshots of text. It will be easier to read if you copy the text into the question and format it so that it’s easier to read.”
  • “I don’t know what the values of x and y are in your code. Without their values, it’s not possible to see how this code runs. Could you make it clear what values they contain, or replace them with the actual values you expect to work with?”

When making suggestions for improvement, many askers don’t yet realize they can [edit the question to add more information], and might be inclined to answer in a comment. For new Stack Overflow members, it might be helpful to also state: