Dilek, this site faces similar phenomena (some of them controversial to say the least) as others (forums, soc. networks) when it comes down to how people relate to each other.

I try to not be aggressive (openly :-) and occasionally decide to simply ignore questions that seem ill-posed to me and sometimes take a more 'educational' standpoint, trying to get the questioner to rephrase the question such that it can be answered. But of course, there's a whole range of possible reactions and we find them on RG.

But you seem concerned about

***"polluted" topics section(s) in RG***

What would that be?

And about asking in an intelligent way: (1) use search functions to find previous threadson RG and (2) elsewhere on the web. (3) try discussing/asking your question offline first (fellow students, instructors, supervisors, peers), this may help to shape the question and toclearly state the point.

Dr. Fauth,

Thank you for your reply one more time.

I asked this question, because I saw many questions that makes sense to the asker and no sense to me. Probably they have something in mind but it was not described in a clear way.

When I say "polluted" I mean some members answer the questions in a poor way. I see many people starting their answer with " This is not my field but..." or " I am no expert in this but...". As a researcher I am aware of the fact that even if you work in the same field for long time you can still make mistakes or miss an important point of view, and when you are not even educated in a topic why would you answer a question? This is one example only. Many members also repeat the same answer as another one which is already on the wall. I think some members are excited to answer questions without focusing on what the question really means. These in my opinion cause a polluted Q/A section. And why am I concerned about this? People tend to trust each other and someone would take the knowledge that is not correct or misleading then make mistakes... which costs our time and money.

And, why do I care about this? Because, I think at the academic level, discussions are supposed to be more honest and depending on knowledge.

Everyone probably has peers, colleagues but this platform is intended to form professional bonds and share the knowledge online. Besides talking to your colleagues to have a different view and point of view I think it is necessary to ask questions here but in a clever way. Ofcourse nothing is %100 perfect, so the question does not have to flawless but it would be clear and to the point.

I do believe that one can significantly contribute even though you're not a real expert. I see quite many questions of the type "what should I do". Sometimes I give answers of the type "I tell you what I would ponder if I were you". Stimulating thoughts may (I hope) help the questioner to reach an own valid conclusion even though he might have been looking for a quick "how to ..." kind of answer.

Would you think that formulating questions most cleverly will significantly reduce the number of poor answers? I'm not so sure, since there's a lot on the responder's side which you can't 'control' I'd think.

This said, I am currently preparing a question and it will probably take a couple hours work to have it ready such that I think it can be properly reflected by interested peers...

@Dilek IŞIK: Aggression in not bad always sometimes it reflect your confidence of-course it should be scientific. I would like to also appreciate the people starting their answer with " This is not my field but..." or " I am no expert in this but..." because it indicates that this is not the “final” and you should also confirm the information/view I am providing here. Their answer may be helpful to the person who asked question. They should be appreciated because at least they tried and they have a will to share the knowledge with others. As you mentioned “because, I think at the academic level, discussions are supposed to be more honest and depending on knowledge”. In this context I would like to state that sometimes starting with " This is not my field but..." or " I am no expert in this but..." also indicate their honesty otherwise one may mislead. In RG; many researchers involved “from learner to the expert ". In my openion to expect same from all will not be honesty and researcher should be free to ask and answer any question scientifically.

Thank you for taking your time to answer.

I see that the way you understand my question leads to different answers and approaches to the problem. It seems like I was not able to express myself ( and I am concerned about asking the questions in a right way at the same time, which is a bit contradictory). I will try to clarify a bit more my concern in this reply although I tried to explain in my previous answer.

This question was created to discuss, what other members think about the quality of questions and answers, I received an email from a member who said thank you for bringing up this subject, apparently I was not the only person thinking about the quality. Another reason I brought up this topic is because I had hard time in understanding many questions as I mentioned before. In brief, I wrote this question with very good intentions to improve the interactions between members, not to overlook kind members who like to share their knowledge.

1. As I mentioned before, I can not make a generalization such as "all the answers that are answered by people who are not experts are poor or absurd". No this was not my intention at all. It is all case specific. I am pointing those who like to answer questions although they don't really have a clue what they are talking about.

I will give an example from one of my answers to a question that was directly related to my research area. I saw a question and I tried to grab it from different perspectives and give a complete answer to the asker. After my reply, a researcher in the same field answered the question giving the answer a different shape and bringing it a different perspective because she was using different tools than I do. I was really excited to see another researcher grabbing the same problem in this way. Instead of reading poor answers I would prefer to read this kind of answers which can bring fresh breath.

2. I appreciate help and sharing knowledge, and I think it is very kind if someone tries to answer a question ( if it makes sense better). If the answer lacks the necessary knowledge it will be useless. I will give you a delicious example to explain what I mean. Baking a cake needs certain ingredients, the correct type of material for the mold ( who would use lead which is toxic for mold?), the right temperature not to burn the cake , the correct timing ( not to dry it), and the flour, sugar if you like, baking powder ( to make it rise) etc. If you miss an ingredient or use the wrong variables the final result will never be the one you expected. This is just a metaphor to explain a bit what I mean. Many more examples can be given for experimental research or for philosophical thinking.

3. @Pankaj Pandey, in your final sentence you wrote expecting the same from everyone is not honesty. Is that really what you meant? Because I do not find a relation between being honest and expectations. To clarify that point " learners- experts", I do not expect anything, I have my preferences only. I would...

Hi Sergio,

I have one question for you. "What if I did not understand anything from your 4 paragraph long answer and what if it did not led to any valuable piece of information?" Would not that be a loss of time for both us?

This is a kind question only, I very well understood what you mean. Communication skills is important to improve and we use it in every field of life which will probably bring you one step in front of others, i.e. in your bussiness, family life, with friends you need to communicate efficiently, otherwise you will say: "No body understands me even my family."

Most questions that are not well described are not getting attention in RG. This is my observation. These members loose a chance to get an answer or a good one.

"If you want to be taken serious, take your audience serious", and communicate well what you are asking for.

I am not against asking questions on the contrary I prefer having questions and answering them because it helps me to learn at the same time. Sometimes I think about an aspect I never thought of. Why would I loose a chance to learn more or to force myself to increase my level of expertise?

i.e. During brain storming what is the most popular sentence directed to the participants?

" Ask your question, tell your idea even if you think it does not make any sense",

but this sentence does not mean! "Ask questions and tell ideas that are not well communicated". or does it?

Hi Dilek,

Nice discussion is going on here. i just want to add one more thing. Most people try to ask in a more specific and shortest way so that other relevant researchers of same field can easily understand the question and can gave reply to you. In most cases when researcher ask much longer question, other researcher don't have time to read all that question and hence he got very few replies.

Thanks

I question need to asked on RG if it has some scientific meaning. I mean to say that discussion about the question lead to give some knowledge to all those who used to see the question and its answer. We may be having many questions in our mind but never come to ask it to someone. Here, there are chances that the question which were in our mind from quite a long time have some answer by the experts. Further, I think that the question should be clear enough so that experts can easily understand and answer to the point. Sometimes we do not get the real answer to the question.

We ask questions to get clear idea about the matter related to the question. It is very important to state the question without any ambiguity and if the listeners cant understand the question you may get a wrong answer or incomplete answer.

We cant categorize any question as 'stupid' or not important and the person giving answer should not answer questions in aggressive tone.

Maybe because the researchgate score is dependent on the number of questions asked, this may contribute to less meaningful or well thought questions. Nonetheless, the possibility of asking scientific questions is a relevant and useful tool on researchgate and thus asking the right question in a thoughtful and well-structured form is fundamental.

Direct questions are the most common type of questions, but you can ask indirect questions to be more polite or to check information

https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/Finding+questions+and+answers

• Plan your questions. Before your meeting, outline your information goals and a sequence of related questions to help you follow the conversation and cue your notes.
• Know your purpose. Every question you ask should help you gather either facts or an opinion. Know which kind of information you need and frame your questions accordingly.
• Open conversation. Unlike simple yes-or-no questions, open-ended questions invite the respondent to talk — and enable you to gather much more information. “What do you like best about this company?” is likely to generate more valuable information than “Do you like this company?” Another tactic is to ask a question in the declarative format — “Tell me about that.” People who won’t answer questions sometimes respond better to a direct order.
• Speak your listener’s language. Relate questions to the listener’s frame of reference and use words and phrases that your listener understands. For example, avoid industry jargon when you’re negotiating with someone outside your industry. If someone doesn’t seem to understand what you’re asking, try rephrasing.
• Use neutral wording. Asking leading questions, such as “How’d you like the terrific amenities at that conference center?” is unproductive. Because the question expresses a glowing opinion of the venue, the other person isn’t likely to say anything negative about it, even if he hated the place. He hasn’t altered his feelings; he just hasn’t expressed them, and you’ve lost an opportunity to influence him. A neutral question that elicits accurate information or an honest opinion — such as “How did you like it?” — is much more helpful.

• Follow general questions with specific ones. Build a hierarchy of questions that begins with the big picture and gradually drills down into specifics with follow-up questions.
• Focus your questions so they ask one thing at a time. To get more complete answers, craft short questions, each of which covers a single point. If you really want to know two different things, ask two different questions.
• Ask only essential questions. If you don’t really care about the information that’s likely to come, don’t ask the question. Respect the other person’s time and attention to avoid appearing resistant to closing the deal.
• Don’t interrupt. Listen to the full answer to your question. The art of good questioning lies in truly wanting the information that would be in the answer.
• Transition naturally. Use something in the answer to frame your next question. Even if this takes you off your planned path for a while, it shows that you’re listening, not just hammering through your agenda, and it ensures that the conversation flows naturally.

The research questions to be answered are those questions that are intended to be answered as the result of this study. 

https://explore.researchgate.net/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=951358

Answers should be limited to those technical problems. While theoretical questions can be solved by the searching in the net

Based on the type of it ,some of them required rearching in google but other may by ready

Scientific questions can be formulated in various ways. They may concern substantively narrower or broader issues and, therefore, the answers are of a different nature. Some questions relate to scientific research for already formulated research theses or relate to rapidly developing fields, eg technologies for which the inquirer considers the formulation of the proper research thesis, so the answers to these questions are also formulated in a concise, password or more-reactive and descriptive manner . Some questions are more specific, for example, they deal with the issue of exact sciences and one unambiguous answer is enough to make the topic exhausted. However, other questions are open and encourage discussion. Some questions are formulated so that almost every person answering a question can formulate a different one, his own response resulting from a different view, other experiences, another own opinion, opinion, etc. Therefore, there are more answers to these kinds of questions, and therefore after each answers this question appears again for a while, it is displayed for the next or the same users, who function in the same field of knowledge that this question concerns.

The question must be correct and accurate.

I think the question should be clear and concise that others will easily understand.

I thinks language should be lucid and projection mayters a lot

Is it possible to ask a question from a member of RG directly? For example, from a follower or following person

I think that very important is a choice day of the week to start a questionnaire in ResearchGate (RG) depending on the activity of users RG, because on Thursday an activity of RG Members will be reduced. In this regard, I started a questionnaire: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_day_of_the_week_is_better_to_start_a_questionnaire_in_ResearchGate

Hi.. my colleagues

1- Can I use the brackish water for culturing of marine fish species?

2- Is there an economic feasibility of this project?

3- Which of the marine fish species is the most common in this type of culture?

Dilek Işik Akcakaya @ Thank you in advance

Is honourary D. Sc degree from California Public University is a valid degree?

The question should be perfect and understand all. Every one problem clearly tells that way of saying. Otherwise, our question and answer tell to more information to all.

Question should be scientific and useful for researchers.

Yes sure. It should be research related and useful to researchers.

A lot of questions in researchgate are of of scope

Yeah Sure. It should be scientific and research-related.

The context of the question should be relevant to science and other research fields.

It should be asked clear and confidently.

It should be clear, specific, understandable to the person, and not annoying or make any discomfort to the answering person.