- some minimal description for the problem you're trying to solve
- what you've tried already, and why it hasn't worked
----
Bad:
> "Hey! Does anyone know how to use X"?
...time passes...
> "Sure, I can help with that. What are you trying to do?"
...time passes...
> "I'm trying to do Y."
...time passes...
> "Okay, sure. You can set it up like this."
...time passes...
> "Oh, I already tried something like that actually, and it didn't work."
...etc., etc., etc.
----
Good:
> "Hey! I'm trying to use X to do Y as a part of feature Z. I already tried A and B, and they didn't work for <reasons>. Could someone help me out?"
> "Oh, yeah, that's a known problem with A and B. We can get around that by setting up X this way. Since you're working on feature Z, you might also want to consider..."