Ten tips to handle your question in the worst possible way

Question

Read the post below with a wink. It is not meant as a bitter numeration, just a parody on what we all run into every now and then. Look at it as an Ask Ubuntu conversion of "How to irritate people"

1. NEVER give all relevant information at once. Especially don't mention if your issue seems to be related to something you did for example.
2. If you get a good answer, which does not work however, as a result of [1], immediately mention it does not work, BUT, don't give any information to improve the answer. Make the answerer dangle a bit, begging for relevant information.
3. If you notice the answer was given in a prompt way, and the answerer communicates instantly, make sure to slow down the process. Your reply should not appear within 50-100 times it took the answerer to reply. The best is of course to never come back to your own question, but this should only be done if you already found your answer somewhere else.
4. If you asked a question, and you get one or more answers that perfectly match the question, change the question drastically. The advantage is that given answers will look completely silly. You'll have to accept the risk that the poster will try to edit his or her answer, to fit the question. This can be resolved by another major edit to the question. It is a bit of work, but the result is hilarious.
5. Accepting an answer should be discouraged, but if you accept, make sure to change your choice on a regular basis. Especially when there is no new answer or any additional information, this is great fun.
6. If you get a good answer, that should have worked if you'd given all the relevant information, don't ask the poster to edit his answer, according to the missing information, but quickly post your own answer, for the greater part based on the existing answer, and accept your own answer. Don't be so weak to even upvote the existing answer.
7. If you feel the poster of a comment (e.g. to get additional information) is not aware of your incredibly high level of knowledge, reply to his or her comment in an agitated or (preferably) aggressive way. That'll teach him or her. In case such a poster eventually posts an answer: no matter if it is the best answer accept another answer, preferably the worst in row.
8. Be sure to invigorate your question by mentioning you will switch back to Windows, and the Ubuntu platform will lose the honor of your presence, if the answerer will not make it work exactly like it was on Windows. Ignore suggestions to try alternative solutions, repeat your demand. In the unfortunate case someone seems to give you exactly what you asked for, don't panic, just keep looking until you find a difference. Anything will do.
9. If, despite all the good work mentioned above, the moment comes that you can no longer ignore the fact your question accidentally got answered, you still have a few options to give you some satisfaction nevertheless:
   • Edit your question's title, adding the section [SOLVED].
     Not mentioning which of the answers solved your issue is especially nice if you have multiple answers to your question, leaving the posters with a question mark above their heads.
   • Post a comment, mentioning something like "Thanks, this works perfectly". Again, do NOT vote or accept.
     
     In both cases, add a filter to your email application to automatically delete possible emails you will get from the site, mentioning the requests (comments) for clarification.
10. Last but not least: the ultimate way to mess up your question is of course to just leave the question alone from the second you pushed enter. Never come back to it anyhow.

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Appendix

If you still feel unsure how to ruin your question, or simply want to read more about the subject, some additional tips. Note that some of these tips were sponsored by readers of this post :)

1. To attract more readers to your post, make sure it is noticed in the jungle of questions. always use capitals in your question's titles. A nice starter would look like:

   MY SYSTEM BROKE DUE TO AN UPDATE UBUNTU RUINED MY SYSTEM WHY IS EVERYTHING SO DIFFICULT ON UBUNTU

2. Furthermore, to most people, it is totally unclear with what purpose questions are posted here. Make sure to add a clarification, but don't overdo it, best leave out some vowels. A good format would be:

   PLZ HELP ME ASAP!!

   This will also prevent readers from fooling around all day before starting to work on your question.

Answer 1

I made this into a bingo game

Suggested instructions:

• each player picks a card
• players collect links to examples for each box on their card
• first person to get a link for each box wins

Enjoy!

Answer 2

Great tips! Here are some more:

1. Make sure to put at least three different questions in the same post. Bonus points if they are in no way related to each other.

2. If you've found the answer yourself, don't even think about coming back and posting it here.

   • If you decide to post it nevertheless, make sure to edit it into your post or leave it as a comment. Never use the answer form!
3. When tagging your question, make sure to use unrelated tags or, better yet, meaningless tags such as ubuntu or problem. Whatever you do, do not be specific!

Answer 3

I love this, but there are a few more I'd include ;)

1. Use the grammar of a 4 year old child ("UBNTUU 1604 FAILS INSTALL HELP !!!"), so that someone like me can swoop in and waste precious time of their life fixing your bad English
2. Make sure that you constantly give a response in the comments that has nothing to do with the question you asked. (Ex: Q about internet "Why does Ubuntu have 16 versions?")
3. If you for some reason get helpful advice, make sure to rant against them because they didn't respond fast enough, this will likely aggravate the person, which is great banter!
4. If a good edit is made to your question (EX: Grammar) Make sure to revert any changes made, so that everything that this person has done is destroyed and your great first version lives on!
5. If you ask a question and it is closed or voted down, delete it and ask it again, because we all know that if you cannot succeed at first, try try again, and definitely the 3rd or 4th time people will get so aggravated of closing it that they may just stop!
6. If you ever ask a question and you are asked for information, use sidestepping questions to evade giving relevant and never give even somewhat helpful info. ("What version of Ubuntu are you using?" Response: "What is Ubuntu?")
7. Make sure that if you receive helpful information, or information that works, to make up some really weird output or story to confuse the hell out of the user trying to help you (Ex: "Please edit your answer with the output of sudo apt-get update", Response: "This dusnt werk, ti givse me cannot work, urdumb)
8. On the contrary if advice is given that doesn't work, ask more questions in the comments (Ex: "Please edit your question with the output of sudo apt-get update, Response: "WHTA DOES SDUO DO?" "ARE YUO TRIYNG TO GIV MI A VIRUSE?")

Again, all this is just humor, not meant to be taken seriously, post down below which is your favorite ;)

Answer 4

A few other things to remember:

1. If your account gets totally deleted, you can always set up another with a different email address and ask the same questions with it instead.
2. If you don't like someone's answer, don't just downvote it, look for other answers by that user and downvote them too.
3. Never take screenshots! Take a picture of your screen with the worst camera you can find and upload it. Even better, post a Youtube video!
4. If someone does answer your question correctly, delete it: they don't need to be bothered with it anymore.
5. Il faut absolummnt poser sa question dans une langue autre que l'Anglais, puisque c'est possible de remarquer quelque chose dans le style: "Not in English SVP".

Append:

In one case only is it permissable to use screenshots, and that is the case of terminal output.

Answer 5

7. WAAT IS UBOONTU? YOU TWYNG TO GIV ME A VIRUSE!?

Answer 6

When you do solve your problem, don't forget to answer your own question yourself, providing nothing more than a basic summary of the already submitted answers. And don't forget to "Accept!"

Answer 7

Always give a long, rambling autobiography explaining how expert you are at software development and system maintenance. Be sure to include your personal stories about how this problem you are encountering is going to ruin your /grades /marriage /master's thesis /employment if you don't get help ASAP.

Answer 8

Here are some more:

1. Don't use more than 3 words for the title. The less the better.

2. Don't just copy and paste terminal outputs. Make screenshot of your whole desktop and post them. Since a picture is worth a thousands words don't use more than 2 lines if you post pictures. Answerers can guess all.

3. Don't use any line breaks if you ask a long question. Since AU answerers are smartest people on earth, they can read them all at once just looking at them.