Meta Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for meta-discussion of the Stack Exchange family of Q&A websites. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Is a question with many words and information better than a short question with only the information that you think is useful?
Which one is better?
There are 2 points to consider:
So try to put your problem in as few words as possible!
Often, it is useful to add a little context to your question. Explain why you do it and what the problem is. Also what the result should be.
But many don't even read the question if it is a long read or looks complicated: Avoid chatting. You could also reduce your problem to a minimum by rewriting your code to a simple example. That makes it also useful for future visitors who need to identify if they have the same problem as you.
Where a question is very long it is often a good idea to provide a summary section that quickly gets to the main points, this allows anyone reading to quickly establish if they are likely to be interested in the rest of the question and provides a core reference for people looking at the question. Of course you should ideally make a question exactly the length to explain everything and nothing more.
A pattern that I have seen effectively exploited is one in which the key problematic method is brought out in something like a summary section but an SSCCE is still provided as additional information. As always the SSCCE should be as short as possible but still replicate the problem
This section is to explain that you should include a background section to include anything that may be useful but isn't critical. It's included to provide context as to the answer to the question you asked
As always adding an example can often be useful
Summary
Where a question is very long it is often a good idea to provide a summary section that quickly gets to the main points, this allows anyone reading to quickly establish if they are likely to be interested in the rest of the question and provides a core reference for people looking at the question
Background
This section is to explain that you should include a background section to include anything that may be useful but isn't critical. It's included to provide context as to the answer to the question you asked
Example
Adding an example can often be useful:
