Where should a user post to ask for help bridging the knowledge / communication gap between experts in a field and themselves?

Question

Is there a location where someone can post a potential question so that experts in the fields could help insert/correct the jargon used within it. Jargon being terminology that an amateur in the field might not know or use incorrectly?

Example: I'm an amateur in the field of Mathematics and I want to know how to determine if in a box containing multiple spheres, which spheres will touch if you increase their radius. Assuming a sphere can't cross the boundary of another sphere. Think of latex balloons each centered at a point in the box and inflated until there is no empty space in the box while assuming that boundaries between spheres/balloons do not exert a force to deform other sections of the sphere/balloon (Volume of each sphere/balloon are not necessarily equal).

This post is atrocious and should be down voted / closed if posted on math.stackexchange. Now there is a mathematical question behind this post that could be answered by a mathematician, but not in this format. I'm sure there are mathematicians who have the skills to help a user clarify their post by replacing a lot of "Loose English descriptions" in their post with proper mathematical jargon so that it would much easier for another mathematician to understand and potentially answer.

Where should a user post to ask for help bridging the knowledge / communication gap between experts in a field and themselves?

Answer 1

TL;DR:

There is no network wide location

where someone can post a potential question so that experts in the fields could help insert/correct the jargon used within it.

Some sites like Computer Science Educators have a question sandbox. See The Question Sandbox. Staging Ground is an special environment to help new askers to write their firsts questions. It's currently in beta testing in Stack Overflow, it's not intended to request others to correct a post regarding the terms / vocabulary used.

Onboarding Overview

Nowadays the Stack Exchange Network has more than 100 sites. While all of them are powered by the same system, each has it's own scope, workings, community and circumstances. Just show your respect to the community spending time to know them.

The Stack Exchange Network and the system that power the sites of the Stack Exchange network do not provide a special site, guidance or treatment for people that is unfamiliar with the topics of the question that they want to ask. There are no differenced standard services based on how people self perceive themselves.

The Stack Exchange model doesn't require new users to provide knowledge or expertise evidence like education studies, certifications or alike. It doesn't require to take an examen. There are communities that might be very strict regarding post attributes, like vocabulary used in the post should make evident that the asker has certain minimal understanding of concepts related to what is being asked, while there are others that might only require to follow the code of conduct and expected behavior.

There might be sites that could have specific resources for people that is unfamiliar with the site topics. Some usual places where this resources are placed or linked are the site help center, meta and tags.

Depending on the user reputation, they could try different approaches.

New User (Rep 1)

Just follow the standard guidance. If the site have specific resources for people that is unfamiliar with the topics of the site, it points the user to those resources.

Note: The system offers certain flexibility to be customized to each site specific needs.

Site homepage

1. Toolbar

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2. Welcome banner (Shown to anonymous users)

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3. Ask Question

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     1. Pay special attention to the Ask a good question modal
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     3. Pay special attention to every field help
     4. Pay special attention to the tag excerpts. If a tag warning is shown, read it carefully.
   • Review your question
     Carefully review if there is any message. Do not do a change just to by pass the warning that is blocking posting your question. This might make that the community see you as someone that doesn't respect them. Some might kind other harsh, but you might have to work harder to gain the community interest to help you to improve your question.

4. Explore our questions

   • This box contains the some of the site top tags. Tags are used to associate questions to specific topics and make it easier to find them. Note: There might be some tags having a tag wiki. The tag wiki might include two parts:
     • Tag excerpt: It's a brief, plaint text, usage guidance. This is shown on mouse hovering.
     • Full tag wiki: It might include additional information to the brief usage guidance. Some tags might include a definition of the term from the community perspective, related tags, links to external resources, FAQ (community curated questions). Some tag wikis are very complete reference material containing the basic knowledge required to understand a question with this tag.

5. Footer

   • The footer has links to the site Help, Meta, Chat among other things.

User (Rep +5)

Once an user have earned at least 5 reputation points they are able to participate in meta. Try the site meta.

User (Global Rep +20)

Users that have earned 20 reputation points on any other Stack Exchange site, they can use the chat. Try the site chat.

Stack Exchange Model

Question categories

Other places might classify questions by categories like those used in brick and mortar libraries like general reference, other according the difficulty like basic and advanced, simple and complex, easy and hard, other about derived questions attributes like answerable or not answerable. The system hasn't features to classify questions by these kind of categories, but some communities might not allow general reference, too basic questions, "google questions", while other might allow them. Read very carefully the site Tour and the guidance provided in Ask Question form and the linked resources in them.

Audience

Some sites allow questions from anyone but others might require that the askers show that they understand the topic the are asking. The are some site that focussed on questions from practicioners of certain profession. While the system doesn't include controls to limit the participation of users that doesn't belong the the intended audience if their participation doesn't follow the site rules their posts might be deleted and eventually the user get a ban and or suspension. Read very carefully the site Tour and the guidance provided in Ask Question form and the linked resources in them.

Vocabulary

Some communities allow questions about academic, professional field and/or practitioners vocabulary. Some might have specific tags for those questions, i.e. [terminology], i.e, Artificial Intelligence, other do not have them but still allow questions about vocabulary like Database Administrators (see What kind of questions are allowed on Database Administrators ?). Read very carefully the site Tour and the guidance provided in Ask Question form and the linked resources in them.

Conclusion

Spend time to know the community and to write your post properly. Choose the site where you think that your question have more chances to be a good fit. Read very carefully the site Tour and the guidance provided in Ask Question form and the linked resources in them.

Otherwise you might be perceived as someone that might not able to understand the community, in the worst case as someone selfish, as Help Vampire, as someone trying to use the Stack Exchange communities as a Mechanical Turk. Stack Exchange main sites are not places to make call to action like posts. They are not intended to be used as job boards, help desk / help lines, backlog, even when the company have gave that impresion with campaings like #SOReadyToHelp and that there are users willing to "feed vampires", do voluntary work or alike.

Related

FAQ like for askers

• How does a new user begin using Stack Overflow/Stack Exchange?
• Should Stack Exchange in general be awarding "A"s for Effort?

FAQ like for answerers / reviewers

• Could we please be a bit nicer to new users?
• What are the most effective ways to guide new users?
• Ways to give users some specific education about question quality and topicality

Current Features and Process

• The new ask page is now live on the network!
• What site-specific changes can be made to the Ask Question page to help askers on that site write better questions?

Ongoing Initiatives

• How might the Staging Ground & the new Ask Wizard work on the Stack Exchange network?

Past Initiatives

• Introducing new user onboarding project

Feature Requests

• Long-term goal: Automated StackOverflow sandbox site for beginners?
• It's a place to help others... but help others who help others!
• Make "What's on topic for this site?" visible

Other

• What site-specific configuration settings are possible, and how have they been implemented by the various communities?
• What parts of the help center can site moderators edit?
• What are the sites that allow questions without details and any research?
• Which sites have customized their help center homepage?
• Where can we find a site charter/purpose that tells us the types of question on/off topic?

Answer 2

Is there a location where someone can post a potential question so that experts in the fields could help insert/correct the jargon used within it

Some SE sites accept terminology questions. Examples:

• What are these two types of lay-flat binding called?
• What do you call an average that does not include outliers?
• What are the little arrows called that hide additional details?

Otherwise one can ask word requests on https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/word-request and https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/single-word-requests, for English. Non-English language learning SE sites typically have similar word request questions.