<sub>I do get notes and comments of people asking for help quite a lot. While most people do just fine there are some people that forget that they are asking for a favour and aren’t in the position to demand anything.
Others are just so vague that you never really know what they really want you to do. And because of that I decided to write down some tips – based on my own experience – to help those who are not sure how to ask for help right. It will make things easier for both sides.

The following things are not universal, they reflect mostly my point of view and how I would like to deal with such request and the process of it. It will not apply for all CSS coders, but it should still give you an idea of what to do and what you should avoid.</sub>

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Before you ask for help

Make sure that you have tried everything that is within your possibilities. The best way of learning is to spot mistakes on your own.
Sometimes it is easier to quickly ask someone else, but if you are able to figure things out on your own, you will remember them the next time and won’t do it again.

If – no matter what you have tried – the problem remains you should have an exact idea of what you want and what is not like it should be.
In best case you have a screenshot of the bug, as well as a layout or mock-up of how it should be like.

How to get into contact

Once you have chosen a person or group to contact, you can either leave a comment or a note.
Personally I prefer notes because comments can get lost easily and I wouldn’t like my profile page looking like a big help board with walls of text.

If you decide to leave a comment you shouldn’t write down the whole problem right away. Ask the person/group if they would be willing to help you with a problem. If they get back to you and want to help you can go on explaining the problem (either via note or comments).

In case you write a note you should find a matching subject for your note first. That way the recipient knows right away what the note is about.
Opposite to comments you could explain your problem in detail right away. Explain what the problem is or with what you are struggling and state what kind of help you are looking for.
The person you are asking for help has no idea what you are trying to do, nor how the finished result should look like if you don’t tell or show them. Fixing problems will be nearly impossible then, especially if they can only guess what should be done.


If a person doesn’t have the time or any other reason to help you, you should accept the fact.
No discussion. You will find someone else to help you most likely.

Bug fixing

While you both try to work on the problem, you as the person asking for help, should always stay patient. Not everyone is sitting all the time in front of the computer and often it takes a while until the helper can really focus on the problem.

Additionally you shouldn’t expect that the helper will code the whole thing for you, they might just give you a general advice or point you in the right direction.
It could happen – especially if you are a beginner – that this information will just confuse you, as you don’t have much understanding yet. In that case ask politely if they could give you an example or help directly with the code.


Sometimes it can happen that a problem can’t be fixed. The reasons might be different, but if it happens you should just accept the fact.
Any person who is trying to help often has to experience the bug themselves to understand what is going wrong. Even with the same code and general settings in can happen, that they won’t get the bug and everything will be fine for them. In that case there is nothing that can be done anymore.
The only thing you can do is to ask someone else, as they might be able to reproduce the bug.



tl;dr

• don’t expect anyone to (re-)code the whole thing for you


• provide as much information as needed


• don’t just leave a link and say you need help


• be patient and don’t demand anything


• be nice enough to say thanks for the help you got

Helpful Resources:

How to: Scroll BoxesTransferred from ~eCSSercise.
This is the first part of a tutorial series that I will be working on in the future and will be released whenever I find the time for it.
In order to know how I can make them better and to make it easier for you to understand the things I am talking about it would be appreciated if you would leave some feedback!
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For this tutorial series I am explaining different elements you can create or modify with the help of CSS. The level of experience that is needed to be able to understand the tutorials can differ and will be in no order.  I will try to explain the things as simple as possible though.
The Basics
To create a scrollbox you don’t need much, just a box with a limited height or width in order to enforce the scrollbar. If you don’t limit the dimensions of the box it will adjust itself to the space given by the browser resolution and settings.
The limited dimension itself doesn’t create the scrollbar,

More tutorials: [link]


Or check #eCSSited to get help from fellow CSS coders or to find other useful resources in the gallery.