Answer questions

Overview
One really helpful and common way to contribute to an open source project is by answering questions.

People who use an open source program often ask questions on:


 * IRC, a real-time chat system, where people typically expect to wait 30 seconds to 5 minutes for an answer.
 * Mailing lists, where typically people expect to wait between 30 minutes and two days for an answer.
 * Q&A websites and forums, like ask.ubuntu.com and Stack Overflow, where people typically wait 30 minutes to two days for an answer.

Users of open source ask questions for any of the following reasons:


 * The program has a bug, and they aren't sure if they are simply using the program wrong.
 * The person is in a rush (for example, a scientist trying to visualize their data under a deadline) and would like someone knowledgeable to help them rather than spend lots of time reading documentation.
 * The person is not a native speaker of English.
 * Or any other reason!

How it helps that project's community
When you answer questions, you make people who use the software happier!

Inspirational quote, and recommended reading
I had been doing technical support, particularly on mailing lists, for about two years, when I first started attending technical conferences. Those first few years were a lot of fun. Idiots would come onto a mailing list, and ask a stupid question that a thousand other losers had asked before them. If they had taken even two minutes to just look, they would have found all the places the question had been answered before. But they were too lazy and dumb to do that.

Then I attended a conference, and discovered a few things.

First, I discovered that the people asking these questions were people. They were not merely a block of monospaced black text on a white background. They were individuals. They had kids. They had hobbies. They knew so much more than I did about a whole range of things. I met brilliant people for whom technology was a tool to accomplish something non-technical. They wanted to share their recipes with other chefs. They wanted to help children in west Africa learn how to read. They were passionate about wine, and wanted to learn more. They were, in short, smarter than I am, and my arrogance was the only thing between them and further success.

-- Paul Frields.

Read more in Part VII of Open Advice.