Do you have suggestions for either: a. dealing with it b. getting people to answer the right question
(a) Recognise that getting upset over it does not achieve your purpose.
(b) Have you tried asking for what you want? For example:
Elo: (question)
A.N.Other: (answer not addressing what you wanted)
Elo: That’s all very well, but what I really want to know is (restatement of the question)
etc., many variations possible depending on context.
Having answered your question, I shall now say something which is not an answer to your question. What is your experience of the other side of that situation, when someone asks you a question?
As a software developer, I spend a lot of time on both sides of this. When a user reports a problem, I need to elicit information about exactly what they were doing and what happened, information that they may not be well able to give me. There’s no point in getting resentful that they aren’t telling me exactly what I need to know off the bat. It’s my job to steer them towards what I need. And when users ask me questions, I often have to ask myself, what is the real question here? Questions cannot always be answered in the terms in which they were put.
That’s all very well, but what I really want to know is (restatement of the question)
I like this idea, but I fear that means my question asking process has to start including a “wait for the irrelevant answer, then ask the question again” process. Which would suck if that’s the best way to go about it. My question could include a “this is the most obvious answer but it won’t work so you should answer the question I asked” which is kind of what I was including with the statement, (“assuming there isn’t something wrong with the question...”). But for some reason I still attracted a -notAnswer- even with that caveat in there—so I am not really sure about it.
I expect to spend some time working on (a. as asked in the OP) dealing with it. I can see how the IT industry would be juggling both sides, and at times you may know the answer to their question is actually best found by answering a different question (why can’t I print; is your computer turned on?).
I suspect the difference is that in IT you are an expert in the area and are being asked questions by people of less expert-status, so your expertness of being able to get to the answer implicitly gives you permission to attack the problem as presented in a different way. You could probably be more effective by appealing to known-problems with known solutions in your ideaspace. In this case (and using my post as a case-study for the very question itself) there are no experts. There are no people of “know this problem better”. Especially considering I didn’t really give enough information as to even hint as to a similarity in problemspace to any other worldly problems other than the assumption statement. Perhaps not including the assumption statement would have yielded all people answering the question, but I suspect (as said in other responses) I would get 101 responses in the form of, “communicate your question better”.
Dealing with the lack of success in answering questions; doesn’t solve the problem of (b in the OP) getting people to answer the right question.
I have asked on a few of the response threads now; is there something wrong with the culture of answering a different question (I find there is)? and what can be done about it?
(a) Recognise that getting upset over it does not achieve your purpose.
(b) Have you tried asking for what you want? For example:
Elo: (question)
A.N.Other: (answer not addressing what you wanted)
Elo: That’s all very well, but what I really want to know is (restatement of the question)
etc., many variations possible depending on context.
Having answered your question, I shall now say something which is not an answer to your question. What is your experience of the other side of that situation, when someone asks you a question?
As a software developer, I spend a lot of time on both sides of this. When a user reports a problem, I need to elicit information about exactly what they were doing and what happened, information that they may not be well able to give me. There’s no point in getting resentful that they aren’t telling me exactly what I need to know off the bat. It’s my job to steer them towards what I need. And when users ask me questions, I often have to ask myself, what is the real question here? Questions cannot always be answered in the terms in which they were put.
I like this idea, but I fear that means my question asking process has to start including a “wait for the irrelevant answer, then ask the question again” process. Which would suck if that’s the best way to go about it. My question could include a “this is the most obvious answer but it won’t work so you should answer the question I asked” which is kind of what I was including with the statement, (“assuming there isn’t something wrong with the question...”). But for some reason I still attracted a -notAnswer- even with that caveat in there—so I am not really sure about it.
I expect to spend some time working on (a. as asked in the OP) dealing with it. I can see how the IT industry would be juggling both sides, and at times you may know the answer to their question is actually best found by answering a different question (why can’t I print; is your computer turned on?).
I suspect the difference is that in IT you are an expert in the area and are being asked questions by people of less expert-status, so your expertness of being able to get to the answer implicitly gives you permission to attack the problem as presented in a different way. You could probably be more effective by appealing to known-problems with known solutions in your ideaspace. In this case (and using my post as a case-study for the very question itself) there are no experts. There are no people of “know this problem better”. Especially considering I didn’t really give enough information as to even hint as to a similarity in problemspace to any other worldly problems other than the assumption statement. Perhaps not including the assumption statement would have yielded all people answering the question, but I suspect (as said in other responses) I would get 101 responses in the form of, “communicate your question better”.
Dealing with the lack of success in answering questions; doesn’t solve the problem of (b in the OP) getting people to answer the right question.
I have asked on a few of the response threads now; is there something wrong with the culture of answering a different question (I find there is)? and what can be done about it?