I haven’t had to write a Question of the Day in a few months now and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand it’s a nice break to not have to come up with things to ask. On the other hand I have to check and edit questions submitted by other people. And that can sometimes be more work than just writing my own.

Coming up with a good question can be tough. We had one recently on datetime values and time zones that sparked quite a debate.

That one alone I think shows that the way one person views a question isn’t the way others do. I try to view them objectively, and simply, not reading too far into them, but that’s not how everyone does it. It can be tricky trying to phrase things to guide people to an answer without just giving them the answer. I think we do a pretty good job overall, but I know we miss a few.

Even if you can properly phrase something, or some up with a good question, it can be hard to build an explanation of why things work. I have submissions that show just a URL, sometimes just repeat the answer, or even say “I don’t know why this works”. Those are tough because sometimes I don’t know either! I hate rejecting things, and try to send them back to the author with a note that asks for some details, but sometimes I have to just let them go.

I got 14 submitted for November, which was a short month with the various conferences and holidays. I’m still working my way through them since it can take me 30 minutes to review one, check code, get a reference, reformat, etc. A bit of a time sink, especially when I can probably knock one out in 15 minutes if I’m doing a batch. I tend to pick a topic, say log shipping, and then write 8 or 10 questions on that subject, scheduling them out over 3-4 months. That way we don’t get too many on one topic in a short period of time.

I like getting the submissions, but the variety of quality and topics makes it a time sink. I tend to put these off sometimes for a week, especially now that I have questions scheduled out through Feb 2 as of today. So if I haven’t reviewed your question, have some patience.

A few notes on submitting a question:

• Don’t get too cute, keep your code and the question simple.
• Specify the version if you use something that might be version specific
• Get a reference, preferably from Books Online, that explains and documents what happened. If you don’t know, post a note in a forum and see if someone can help you understand why things happen.
• Use BOL online, not the ms-help:// local reference.
• If you want people to choose more than one answer, say that.
• Use a spell/grammar checker.