Help Forums

From MacroQuest Wiki

Contents

How To Request Help

MQ2::Help and MQ2::Macros::Help require an addition to the wiki (see step by step below) and a link to the addition in the text of your post, in order for you to start a new thread.

Why?

  1. MacroQuest should be a give and take community. If you take, you should also give.
  2. Explaining things to others gives you a better understanding yourself
  3. By forcing you to find where the answer to your question should be found, you might actually find your answer already there...

Step by Step

If you fail to follow these instructions, your post will either be moved to What Not To Do::Help or will be deleted. The same effort you display in following these instructions will be displayed to you in answering your question.
  1. Sign up and log into the wiki
  2. Navigate on the wiki to the place you think the answer to your question should be found. Start from the Main Page, and navigate via the links on the page until you reach your goal. Don't use the "search" box and give up. The answer to your question should also not be found in a "discussion" or "talk" page.
  3. Decide what the answer to your question SHOULD be, and how it might be explained in an encyclopedia (e.g. a MacroQuest encyclopedia), even if you really have no idea. If you get this far and can't even guess the answer, please just stop and think before moving on. Do not refer to yourself as "I" in your edit -- nobody will know who "I" is. Do not explain that you are unsure. If you're unsure, put {{Review|Your Username}} -- Example: {{Review|Lax}} which will show something like "" -- at the very end of what you type, rather than saying "probably wrong" or "I think" or "I dont know".
  4. Hit an "edit" link on the page -- these links appear at the top of each page, and at each section within the page
  5. In the edit box, type what you think the answer to your question should be, even if you do not know for sure. Make it informative, rather than inquisitive (do not ask a question -- state an answer). You don't need to know any special codes to add to the wiki; Simply put the answer as you think it should read.
  6. Get the URL to the page you edited, for example http://www.macroquest2.com/wiki/index.php/Help_Forums is the URL to this page. Alternatively, you can just get the title of the page, found at the very top, right below the tabs that say article, discussion, edit, etc. For example, Help Forums is the title of this page.
  7. Post a new thread on the help forum, with a descriptive title. Do not title your post "help please", just try to explain it as best you can in a few words. Inside the thread, make sure to include the URL to the page you edited, or the title of the page inside [[]], like this: [[Help Forums]]. Also explain what you added to the wiki, and ask if it needs to be corrected or changed. You can say whatever else in the post you like, but this is the most important thing.
  8. Wait for someone to respond to your thread. If your addition to the wiki must be corrected or changed, it is likely that someone will do it for you, and then respond. If you were right, then you lost absolutely nothing, and either way your question should be answered for the next person to have the same question.

Good Examples

Good Example 1

JJ did not find the answer to his question in the wiki. He navigated to where the answer should have been found, and put useful information there, regardless of the correctness. His changes to the wiki did not involve questions. In the end, others were very helpful in providing the information he required, and the wiki was updated with correct information for the next person that would have such a question.

Good Example 2

DaGrumpf did not find the answer to his question in the wiki. He navigated to where the answer should have been found, and put useful information there, regardless of the correctness -- DaGrumpf also gets bonus points for adding a new page to the wiki for his issue. His changes to the wiki did not involve questions. In the end, he received the information he needed, and the wiki was updated with correct information for the next person. In fact, a new utility program was created to help with his issue in the future.

Good Example 3

JustMeAgain27 did not find the answer to his question in the wiki. He navigated to where the answer probably should have been found, and put what he thought should be the answer -- even though his guess was incorrect (take notes please). As of this writing, other users should now be answering his question and fixing the wiki page he edited to have the correct information.

Bad Examples

Bad Example 1

Cyberflight started off by saying F this and this website sucks. What sucks is he's no longer allowed to visit it, and we are all sad. Cyberflight exerted no effort to navigate to where his issue should have been found, and simply hit the "discussion" tab at the top of his page, ranted, and only asked questions (failing several times to follow step #2 and also #4). Had he performed the steps correctly, he would have had the question answered for himself as well as the next person.

Bad Example 2

Ozzie didn't make the mistake Cyberflight started with, so Ozzie is still with us. However, he also failed to follow steps 2 and 4 by not navigating. His wiki edit was also just a copy of his post, and therefore not informative.

Bad Example 3

Psychosis failed to edit the wiki at all. He simply linked to an existing page and made no effort to follow steps 2 through 4. He's lucky that anyone answered his question in the first place, but proceeded to complain about the answers he got anyway. He later edited this very page with a random comment.

Bad Example 4

Kantiz failed to follow step 2. The answer to your question should also not be found in a "discussion" or "talk" page. Also, his edit was in the form of a question, rather than an answer.

Bad Example 5

mystikule was able to successfully navigate to the wiki to where the answer to his question should have been found. However, his wiki edit (which was rolled back, but the original can be seen here) was simply what his post was going to say. It said "Almost appears as if the ${Cursor}.ID command is not working." and then a paste of a macro -- the wiki is an information reference, not a message board.
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