I’d add that it’s basic respect and decency for your fellow humans who are paying for the attention with their own life.
reply> after enough instances of "I'm trying to do X. It's not working. Help." type messages.
replyRelated to this, I will never for the life of me understand why people think it's okay to say "I get an error" without saying what the error is.
I don't expect a non-technical person to understand the error, but I do expect a non-technical person to know that what the error message is is useful to the person trying to help you and to proactively provide the contents of the error message, even if it's a shitty cell phone picture of the error.
I don’t formalize anything that extreme for my teams because I can’t diagnose people, but I know that things like anxiety, imposter syndrome and a whole wack of things that aren’t related to work get involved. It’s acceptable to ask for help. I like to know what people have tried but sometimes they don’t know how to start. And that’s a great place to start.
replyI guess we all have different styles but some may be more inclusive than others.
How the problem and request are presented matter. "I don't know where to start" is a different problem than "I've done nothing, just solve this for me." And how someone shows an effort was made will vary person to person, so I agree a strict formalized set of rules doesn't make sense. The concept boils down to "expect people to put forth some effort of their own"
reply"Teams" are also going to have different dynamics than "strangers on a help forum."