When you were in school the number one thing teachers would always say to students is “There is no such thing as a stupid question” additionally as a tutor who has helped students in Computer Science I know that although it is true there is no such thing as a stupid question I like to think that it is not the question you ask which is stupid but it is the way you asked the question which makes it stupid. Three main ways I believe a person can improve their “not so smart” question and make it “smart” is by making their question more explicit so that the person answering the question knows exactly what the problem is, adding more information that helps the person answering the question know what you have tried before asking the question, also finally is just being polite and not being entitled.
If you remember back in school when the person next to you might have asked you “I don’t know what to do can you help me?” or even the whole dialog of going through “I don’t understand it” then asking “What don’t you understand” when them answering “Everything”. With our first “not so smart question” we look at this question “I don’t know what to do.” This question is HORRIBLE it does not give any context to what the issue is besides the code doesn’t work and when looking down at the comments I noticed this comment by a user saying “Might want to rephrase the question, I don’t know what to do is very broad.” This question can be made “smart” by adding the errors which was received and what the programmer wanted to do. In this example this is a good example of a “smart” question being on preventing SQL injection in PHP this question is good because it is explicit in what the programmer wants to know and what how to protect their code from certain SQL codes.
An issue that seems to be very specialized with technical subjects is when people ask questions they do not address what the issues are specifically but what they have done and why they are still having the same issue. A good example of this is this “not so smart” question on overriding Django administration translation the issue with this question is that it falls into a similar trap that many questions on the site fall into is that it does not get explicit on the issue although in the edit the author realizes his mistake. A good way the individual could have wrote this question better is by including in the question more explicitly on the errors he received instead of just posting what he has done and writing about what he’s noticing the issue is. A good “smart” question example is this question on JavaScript on calling a function within a class which is an explicit question stating the issue and stating what the code is currently.
We want things now and with social media and services like Amazon Prime and Uber Eats we can receive gratification faster than ever before. But it can be terrible when trying to get help from other people. Saying something like “Urgent” or “I need this answered soon” can make people turned off from even helping no matter how good your question is and how explicit and helpful it is to the person asking the questions. A good example of this “not so smart” question is this post from seven years ago. Not only is the question vague which but also can come off as entitled with using “Can anyone please help, this is urgent.” Seven years later there is only one reply and no verified answers. A way this person can fix this is by one adding more explicit information and second removing this is urgent. A counter example of a “smart” question is to do with redirection to another webpage although it is a simple question for many developers but it is effective and gets straight to point of what the person asking the question wants to know.
The good way to avoid asking “not so smart” question is by asking “smart” questions. Yes although it is harder than it looks but it takes a few moments to think about our questions and to think about whether it will be helpful to the person answering the question. A good way to start is by looking at the guide on How to ask questions the smart way it gives more information and even some things you probably shouldn’t even do when asking questions.