This is another follow up to Let's talk about closure.
Our on topic Help page has not been substantively revised in many years. As the one (I believe) Help page that we have the ability to write, it's the canonical place for us to state our community's scope, values, and specific expectations.
I'm offering a revision on which I would like to solicit feedback from the community, as well as proposals for 2-3 examples of excellent questions - excellent in terms of great communication that clearly expresses an issue and receives a great solution. The questions, in short, that you would want new contributors to use as their models.
Note: we can rewrite the on-topic page but not the off-topic page, which contributes to what I've chosen to include here.
What topics can I ask about here?
Salesforce Stack Exchange is for Salesforce administrators, developers, architects, and anyone else implementing and customizing Salesforce products. Our scope includes the core Salesforce platform and CRM application, all Salesforce clouds, including Marketing Cloud, Pardot, and Analytics Cloud, Trailhead, and Quip. We also cover the Heroku platform itself, but not general programming questions on Heroku.
We encourage questions about any facet of implementing and customizing the Salesforce platforms. Whether you build using code or declarative customization, your questions are welcome here!
Questions and answers from users of all levels, from beginner to expert, are welcomed. All we ask is that, whatever your level, you make an effort to participate in our format, which is described below. This helps keep our community effective and valuable for everyone. To get you started, here’s a few examples of great questions that have been asked and answered on Salesforce Stack Exchange:
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Salesforce Stack Exchange is not a forum. It’s a community knowledge base, built and curated by you. One of the key values of Salesforce Stack Exchange is maintaining a high signal-to-noise ratio and ensuring that the questions and answers we feature provide value to everyone — not just the asker and the answerer, but the thousands of other users that come to Stack Exchange to find solutions to their own problems. We want a successful answer to be a clear, complete, and accessible reference for everyone who has the same problem!
To build that community value, we maintain a clear format, often summed up as "questions that have specific answers". While not every question fits this pattern in the same way, a general expectation is that a question post should include
- A specific, detailed description of the issue (“it doesn’t work” is not enough to allow the community to help).
plus
- The implementation that led to the issue (the code, metadata, or design, in its current form).
- and/or the research and work you’ve done so far on the issue.
To learn more, please read [ask] and "What types of questions should I avoid asking?".
Don’t worry if community members ask you to add information to your question or clarify your posts: we’re trying to help you ask the best question possible, to make sure you get a high quality answer and share value with the whole community. If you don’t understand right away, ask for guidance about what you need to do, and don’t hesitate to edit your post to add information and help the community understand your challenge.
There’s a few things we request that you not ask about or contribute to the site.
- We’re not a place to exchange code or find implementation services. Questions that ask for the community to write code or provide step-by-step instructions for implementation are often not received well and are likely to be closed. The community is here to provide mutual support, so we expect to see the work you’ve done so far in your questions. Similarly, we ask that answers provide clear, written explanation, and don't merely consist of pasted code.
- Because Salesforce certified professionals are bound by confidentiality agreements, we do not allow any content that is from, or looks like it’s from, Salesforce certification exams. Questions asking for certification content to be answered or explained are removed immediately and without exception.
- We don’t allow complete solutions to Trailhead challenges. Questions about specific problems encountered in completing Trailhead modules are welcome, but please do not provide complete solutions or details to challenges that would impede others from effectively demonstrating their own independent work.
If you have questions about what’s welcomed on SFSE, please feel free to ask a question on Meta Salesforce Stack Exchange, which is for questions about the site itself.
