Asklemmy

43927 readers

554 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

How to know if you're asking the wrong question ? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

What's that principle where you don't know you're asking the wrong question because you've got this idea in your head on how to do something, so you search frustratingly. If you could step up a level and find the right question, you'd find a well established, efficient solution.

Related to unknown unknowns I guess, but I came across a phrase or word encapsulating it, and now I can't remember or (ironically) find it.

ETA: It's the XY Problem, thanks [email protected].

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Take a step back and explain context. I've found, when working as a subject matter expert, people focus on the wrong parts of the problem when asking the question and will try to optimize their question for the wrong thing.

Explaining how the problem came about adds context and helps you ask the questions you don't know to ask.