Before you ask…
Community forum is NOT a helpdesk
Let’s put this in the front: nobody here works for openHAB. The community members are helping with an Open Source Project, not a commercial software.
Additionally, the forum is NOT dealing with general Home Automation topics, the focus is on openHAB. In some cases, various products or technologies which are not directly linked to openHAB can be discussed but with the proper title, category or tag.
We are ALL volunteering our free time to help others and as much as it pains to say it, not all topics might get a satisfying answer.
Did you search?
Check the Search functionality. There’s a high chance that someone already asked a similar question and the answer is just waiting for you.
It might not work exactly as you need, but most of the common scenarios have already been covered. Yes, you may need to alter the code/configuration a little bit, but that’s just part of the work.
Also keep in mind that when you’re writing a new topic, on the right side (where the Preview panel is) you will see topic suggestions. These are matched by your topic, tags and post content. Check them out before you post.
If you do find a solution to your problem, consider dropping that post a like - it will help also with further searches for other users as well as notify the person that wrote that it helped someone.
So how do I search correctly?
Try to search only for what is the essence of a question - error message (without your use case specific data), binding name, operation you want to perform, data type you’re struggling with.
Some examples of searches for common scenarios:
- binding problems
- rule coding
- sitemap configuration
- errors in the log file
I found a similar topic but it’s already solved and I still have a problem. Should I post in it?
That is sometimes tough to decide. As a rule of thumb - no.
What you could do, is to post your question in a new topic and put a link to the topic you found (see also Show effort below).
Did you read and search the docs ?
OpenHAB docs are at Introduction | openHAB . There’s at least a couple of pages you should know before asking such as the concepts, New User Tutorial and configuration principles.
Note searching the forum will not yield any results from the docs, but there’s a search function on the docs pages, too.
Writing a good question
Choose a category
Most categories are self explanatory, so you shouldn’t have much trouble in choosing one.
Title
Having a good topic title is essential. It should summarize your issue or question so that without even opening the topic people can have a good, general idea of what is inside.
A good topic generally:
- Includes unique part of the error you’re getting
- Contains binding name or action description
- Describes the thing you’re having an issue with
- Is emotionless
Some examples:
- Good How do I use a timer in a rule to delay an action?
- Bad Timer not working
- Ugly Problem/Need help
- Good ZWave - Not able to include device ZXX123
- Bad ZXX123 not discovered
- Ugly ZWave problem
If you’re having a problem writing a good topic title, leave it for last - once you’ve written the whole question, it might be easier to write a summary title for it.
Tags
While we’re with the topic, let’s cover the tags as well as they complement each other.
Tags are added to a topic to help with search, as well as give additional context to people reading your question.
Common tags include zwave, mqtt, HABpanel, rules etc.
The Question
Before posting anything make sure that you read and follow the community guidelines
Describe your goal
It is vital to give as much detail as needed for people to understand what you’re struggling with and also what are you trying to accomplish. The latter part is crucial to avoid creating a XY problem when asking. That’s very much annoying volunteers.
Show effort
As stated at the beginning, this is a community forum. If you don’t show any effort from your side, be prepared that your question might be ignored.
This includes:
-
Posting links to similar topics that you’ve found through search - it shows that you already tried to find a solution and also what have you tried before asking, so you won’t get answers/links to things that already didn’t work for your situation.
-
Try to reproduce the problem, i.e. try find out what changes trigger the problem and which ones make it disappear.
-
Describing what you tried - topics that state the problem and straight up ask for a solution are often ignored (“I need to write a rule like this. Please give me a solution.”), because why anyone should give their free time to someone who couldn’t spend a couple minutes showing that they care?
Describe your environment
What version of openHAB are you using? What snapshot version (if relevant)? Are you using Windows, Linux ? openHABian ? If Linux, is it natively or in Docker or some VM?
Some categories provide you with a template to fill in:
- Platform information:
- Hardware: CPUArchitecture/RAM/storage
- OS: what OS is used and which version
if openHABian: which branch and version ? - Java Runtime Environment: which java platform is used and what version
- openHAB version:
- Issue of the topic: please be detailed explaining your issue
- Please post configurations (if applicable):
- Items configuration related to the issue
- Sitemap configuration related to the issue
- Rules code related to the issue
- Services configuration related to the issue
Describe what you changed and what’s happening now
- try going back in your mind and logs to determine when your system was still working properly and when you noticed for the first time that your problem happened.
- explain ALL changes you made between those points in time - not just the last one. Quite often the reason isn’t what you believe it to be.
- Generate logfiles showing the problem and what happens right before that.
See Logging | openHAB.
Post the logs (the relevant part fromopenhab.logusually) using code fences (see next paragraph).
The more you describe about how it’s setup and what it is doing, the easier it will be to reproduce or drill down what might be causing your problem.
Use proper formatting
Especially use code fences for code samples. This thread should give you a quick rundown of how to format your text.
Do not post screenshots of text but provide the text itself so it can be referenced/quoted.
Remember to split text into paragraphs and use white-spacing.
Attach examples
Provide rules, config or logs wherever this could help with understanding the issue.
Text is preferred, use screen shots only where appropriate.
New users can’t attach files, but once you’ve searched before posting you probably already unlocked the Basic level and thus shouldn’t hit this limitation.
Reread it
Yes, the whole thing - check if topic is descriptive, tags are appropriate and that the question makes sense and actually asks what you want it to ask.
Having good grammar and spelling helps, but since not everyone is a native English speaker (most of us aren’t), at least check if there are some glaring errors. Punctuation and white-space also helps a lot.
May I mention users in the post?
Generally - no.
Users you address are notified and that’s annoying most people as it is essentially demanding an answer from them.
That’s at least in the initial post. In followup posts you might be doing that, but that also depends on the person on the other end.
At the very least if you do mention someone in the post using @someusername, be polite. Remember, we’re all volunteers here.
Done. Now what?
Now you wait 
Since there are users from all over the world, answers and questions come basically 24/7, but the actual time when you’ll get one is undetermined.
Noone is responding 
If the topic has been open for a longer period and noone responded, reread your post and title. Maybe you could improve it (remember that you can always edit your posts).
If you think it’s all good, consider giving it a bump - that is post a reply there to make it visible. Sometimes there’s a lot of traffic on the forums and people that know an answer to your question might’ve just missed it.
Do note that if you overuse it, it might give the opposite effect of showing you as an entitled person and thus drive people away.
I found a solution myself
Awesome!
If you think it will be valuable, post it in your topic and mark it as solved. It might help someone else that will find your post later.
If you don’t feel like sharing, at the very least leave the topic open. Deleting your posts can be seen as bad manners and that you only care about yourself to a point where you don’t even want your question to be in the community forums. At least it can serve as a starting point for a different user to point to it and say “Hey, I have the exact same question and that one doesn’t have a reply - I’ll bump it and ask there.”
I got a reply, but it didn’t solve my problem
This is what can happen a lot. See what the poster mentioned and if it brings you closer to a solution, mention it in your reply. It will make them feel that replying to you was worth their time investment and they will most probably stick with you to solve the issue completely or even involve other people they know to help.
I got a reply and the issue is solved
Great!
A few things to note on closing the topic:
-
If someone posted a solution to your question, mark it as such (there’s a checkbox in the bottom of that post for that).
-
If someone’s posts help arrive at the solution, consider dropping them a like. As with everything, don’t spam it, but a little appreciation goes a long way.
Does this even work…?
Try for yourself and find out
Remember - there is no guarantee that you’ll get an answer, as noone is required to give you one.
All you can do is provide a good, thought through, interesting question. Usually that’s more than enough to get people to help you.
In time you should find it easier to write good questions and hopefully also answer some from other users.
That’s what we’re all here for.
All credit to: How to success Email Alerts in Uipath - Tutorials - UiPath Community Forum
Thanks for @Dim and @rlkoshak and others for the feedback
and I’m far from being able to explain things like 
) work!
Can we have a multi title?
Perhaps 
it’s easier/faster to make a few clicks.
).