CodeASP.NET Forums Tips and Guidelines

Hi and Welcome to the CodeASP.NET forum!

If you're a new member to the codeasp.net forums or you've been here for awhile, this post is intended to help you get started how to participate in the forums.

When should I start a new thread?

Before you start a new thread, please take the time to search for your answer first. To do this you can either:

use the site search that is located at the upper right corner of the site.
use google or bing to see if answers might already exist for your question. Many questions have already been answered either at this site or at any other online technical sites that talks about ASP.NET related stuffs. Here's good article that you can refer on "How to Use Google and Other Tips for Finding Programming Help".


Where should I post my question?

As you may know, finding the correct forum to submit your post plays a very important role in  receiving an answer to your question, so before you post a question please take a moment to look around first and familiarize yourself with the available forum sections.

Always look for the most specific forum that relates to your question and post your question in that most specific forum.This means; if you're getting started with web forms, *don't* post to Getting Started/ General ASP.NET section. Instead, post your question to the Web Forms/ Data Controls forum section which is more specific for web forms question.  Similarly, if you're getting started with Database queries, Data Access or Sql Server stuffs, go ahead and post to the Data Access forum section rather than the Getting Started forum section.


How should I ask my question?

Now that we  already have an idea of how to determine where to post, your next question might be:  How should I write my post to help make sure I can receive an answer? Well, here are some tips for you.

•     Use the thread subject to provide a quick summary of your question. Don't just write "Help!!!" or "Urgent!!!" in the thread subject. If your post subject doesn't encourage other forum members to see your post, you might not get an answer right away.
•     Provide specific information such as the language you're coding in (VB, C#), the framework version you're targeting (1.1, 2.0, 3.5 etc...) and a relevant code sample in your initial post. If you receive an error in your code, go ahead and post that error message. But...don't overdo it. Posting the code for an entire page may be too much. Try to keep your code sample relevant to your specific question.
•      Don't include confidential information in your posts. Sometimes this can be overlooked if you're copying source code into your post. What you post will ultimately become very public.

Here's a link on "How to ask questions on forums"

Here are some good other articles that you can also refer:

"How to ask a question the Smart way"

"How to get your question answered"


Avoid Thread-Jacking (aka necro-posting)

If you come across an old thread on the forum that you think you might have answer for, we suggest you to don't provide an answer for that old thread.

Why?

This is because when you reply to an old thread in a forum, that old thread finds its way back to the top of the forum list.  This causes a more recent thread to fall off the bottom of the list and move to page 2 (or 3 or 4 etc...).  This reduces the number of members that might see and possibly answer the question listed in that newer thread.  If you have time to provide answers to any forum questions, please stick to the forums more recent threads.  There's a member still waiting behind that recent question hoping for some help.

Off-Topic Posts

There are a couple of different ways to go Off-Topic.

   1. The various forums at codeasp.net are dedicated for ASP.NET questions. This means, if you need help with Windows forms, Windows Development, SilverLight, Classic ASP, IIS settings, Window Server etc... then this is not the forum for your question. This site host a few forums here that at first glance don't seem to be specific to ASP.NET at all.  For example: SQL Server, SQL Server Express, C#, VB.NET and Clientside technology like Javascript/jQuery.  While these technologies can certainly be used outside of ASP.NET, they exist as unique forums here at forums.asp.net to support the needs of the ASP.NET developer.

   2. Another way to go "Off-Topic" is to reply to an existing thread in the forums with a question that is very different and unrelated to the question ask by the member that started that existing thread. This is often referred to as Thread Hijacking. Thread Hijacking is prohibited.


Forum Courtesy

With so many members and so many points of view, Adminstrators and Moderators cannot hope to always agree on what the right answer to a question might be. In fact, it is often these different opinions on a topic that ultimately connects a member's question to a truly helpful answer.

If you see a current topic for which you disagree with the opinions expressed in the existing posts, go ahead and post your opinion too.  But please keep all posts polite, courteous and on-topic.

Thanks for reading and Welcome!