How does one make the best use of Fluther?

As long as you play within the rules that govern General and Social you can ask anything to your hearts content. Play it smart and ask questions that do require research and let the Jellies do the research for you. The less you make the question sound like homework the better.

@Cruiser I am 53, not attending any school, all my questions are homework. Thanks for your response, though. Why is it that word always looks wrong?

As a past student and a parent…it is always easier when someone else does the research for you as it gets the task completed much quicker….but for the “student” they learn next to nothing when other do the work for them and why I resisted doing any of the research to the answers my kids were seeking and I apply the same rule here when Jellies post obvious homework questions here and why I encouraged you to camouflage them as mere curiosities. Jellies here love to show off and flex their gray matter here….but not for obvious homework questions.

You can ask just about any sort of question you wish, though if it is on an NSFW topic, you should tag it as such in the title, without using NSFW terms in the title.

People tend to get a little touchy when they think they are being asked to do someone’s homework for them. It’s not against the rule to ask homework questions here, but you should show that you’ve made some effort to answer the question yourself, and it’s better to ask for help solving the problem, rather than asking for the solution to the problem. This will garner more good will from the Fluther community.

We have lots of people here who do research. If you are looking for pointers about how to do research, that’s not only ok, it will probably be interesting for people to answer. You’re not expected to do a ton of research yourself before asking any question, although if it’s the sort of question you could do a quick Google search for and find the answer, you might find that someone responds, “Google it.” Honestly, we’re a bit starved for attention lately, though, so I doubt it.

It’s ok to ask more questions in the details, but try to be as focused as you can, because many people will answer the title question without bothering to read the details, and if the additional questions that you ask in the details show inconsistent logic, or are too numerous to keep straight, then some people will fixate on that problem and not get around to helping you.

Finally, use the General and Social sections to best suit your needs. General is (broadly speaking) where people ask straightforward questions, and get straightforward answers. Chit-chat is not permitted in the responses in General. In Social, people can stray a little bit off topic and converse a little more; there tends to be more humour in Social.

It also helps you, and us, to answer better if you re-read your own questions multiple times before posting them to make sure they are clearly written. Sometimes people want to know something, that they and the rest of us might find interesting, but their writing skills are so poor that it’s hard to decipher exactly what they want to know.

Other than that, and the above information, ask away : )

Read over some of your past questions. Don’t be afraid to revive, if that works.

If you have access to a desktop, you can still use Fluther search to pretty good effect. Or Google your question and use Fluther as part of the search to see if there’s already any help available here.

Dive right in, the water’s fine. Participate in some esoteric questions, then just start asking/answering away.