How to Ask a Good Question

Here are some tips, tricks, and suggestions for you to ask a complete, detailed question. The items below will increase your chances of finding the exact answer you’re looking for.

Before posting a question:

• Search for similar questions before posting.
• Don’t ask your questions by commenting on old posts. If you have a similar problem, but want to provide more detail for your situation, post a new question. You can then link to the older question and explain why that solution doesn’t work for you.
• Check that you’re posting in the appropriate space, App Market Developer Platform or Semi-Integration. Non-technical questions are not permitted in this forum.

Posting a question:

• Give an overview of the problem. Explain your motivation, or what you are trying to accomplish and why. A thorough overview allows other members to not only answer your technical question, but suggest alternative ways to achieve your goal. The more detailed a question is, the more targeted and specific an answer can be.
• Post a clean, easy-to-read question. Proofread your question for spelling and grammar, and take a few moments to format your post for clarity. Specifically, ensure that your code snippets are pre-formatted and readable. This will make other members much more likely to engage.
• Use topics to help categorize your question. Topics group questions around a specific subject, and they also give readers more context about the question. When asking a question, you can add relevant topics from our topics list: http://community.clover.com/topics.html?sort=popularity
• Use Gist or Pastebin if you need to post large code snippets or log files.
• Include your stack trace and logcat if you are reporting a crash (using Pastebin or Gist). Also provide an approximate timestamp of the crash along with the merchant name or ID. These details help us associate your problem with logs on our servers.
• When reporting what you think is a bug, please provide a minimal, complete, verifiable example. This enables us to quickly look at your code to a) ensure that you are using our SDKs or REST API correctly, and b) reproduce the problem locally. If a problem can be reproduced, it is much more likely to be fixed!
• When reporting a problem experienced on a Clover device, include the Clover device model (Mini, Mobile, Station, etc). Also, please include information about the app and SDK versions you are using. While it may not always be obvious where to find version information, a good rule of thumb is to include firmware version (adb shell getprop | grep ro.build.version.incremental) and the Clover Engine APK version (adb shell dumpsys package com.clover.engine | grep versionCode).
• Be specific about your setup. Always be specific about the versions of SDKs, apps, environment, and other relevant information. We might only be able to reproduce your bug if we use the exact same setup, which will offer insights into solving the problem. For example:
  • “I’m on Windows 10 OS build 17134.228; I’m using Remote Pay Windows 1.2.0 and connecting to USB Pay Display 1.0-107 via the Windows REST Service in the production environment.”
  • “I’m using version 168 of the Clover Android SDK and have version 1352 of the Register app installed on my test merchant (mId: TB6EGCJW1K3EW) in the sandbox environment.”
• Don’t share private data. Never post API tokens or other information that shouldn’t be shared publicly. If your question involves private data, post your question with the general information first. Then, post a private comment to that question that is only viewable by moderators.

After posting a question:

• If your question is answered, mark it as such. This allows other members to understand that this is the correct solution and that they don’t need to ask the same question again.
• Avoid posting follow-up questions or comments as an answer. Use comments to ask for clarifying information from a poster.
• Update your questions as you find new information. Don't hesitate to delete your questions if they turn out to be invalid.

How to Write a Good Answer

• Answers should be answers. Answers are not the place for comments or additional questions; instead, you may comment on the original question or any of the answers. If you are the original poster and you have a related question, you should post it as a new question.
• Update your answers as you get new information. At a later point, if you learn additional details or caveats about the answer you provided, update your original answer. If you discover that your answer is incorrect or someone has answered it better, feel free to delete your answer. Ideally, every question will have one excellent answer.
• Avoid lengthy two-way conversations in the comments section.
• Be respectful toward others. This is a community for Clover developers to help each other build great products. Everyone should feel welcomed.