You've probably been to the forums because you're encountering a problem. 

Just remember, when you post there, that we are trying to help you.  Don't get angry, frustrated or rude, just tell us what's wrong and we'll help you work out the problem. You should also have at least read the beginners guide to joomla.

When asking for advice, the most important aspect to consider is asking in such a way that will allow the community to quickly know what you want and give all the information they need to help you.

In general, you want to be clear, concise, complete, and polite.

When you ask for support, please understand that depending on the number of questions the community see, other commitments, social life etc, they may not be able to answer or even acknowledge your question. Also understand that if you’re asking for free help, you need to be respectful of the time they’ve dedicated free and of the additional time you’re asking them to spend with you. Supply them with as much information as possible.

•  Refrain from spamming or bumping, posting for points. If you make a post and don’t receive a reply within 5 minutes, that doesn’t mean you should post again. This will likely move you down or off the good attention list. People dont live on the forum waitng for your post.

•  Unless otherwise told, do not contact/PM/Skype the forum leaders or more experienced people. This will not only make you unpopular and probably be classed as a bully. Some people actually make a comment in their signature lines stating they will ignore, delete and ban people who do. Others may also state that if you PM them, you will accept their personal support charges. They may also make a public posting in the topic you want help on stating you are a demanding, impolite user and everyone will ignore you.

•  If you see an error message, copy the entire error message and include that in your initial post. These error messages help to narrow down the problem making for quicker resolution times

•  Is there a forum for your language? It may be better to post in the wrong forum where someone can undertand you than post in Babel English where people will have no idea what your on about!

We know just as well as anyone else that everyone makes mistakes.  If the problem was caused by something you accidentally did, we may be able to help.  We don't expect you to be an expert at using our Joomla.
Even Microsoft states
"When posting questions to a professional forum or newsgroup it is vital to format the question and it's content in a proper way in order to greatly increase the possibility for quickly receiving a good answer, and thus saving you time and frustration. "

Dont grovel it is not a substitute for your lack of searching.
“I know I'm just a pathetic newbie loser, but”. Is unhelpful and when it's coupled with vagueness is really useless. Don't waste your time or ours. Present the background facts and your question as clearly as you can.

Don't mark it as “Urgent - Help”, even if it is for you.
Thats not really our problem. Claiming urgency is very likely to result in the opposite. If its that urgent, then youll probably end up paying for it. Your concept of "needed now" is probably differents from ours.  Your save the "lesser spotted Onepchew's"  website can possibly wait a day or two.

Did I read the forum?
I am not on about searching, but actually read  the stickies "what forums should i post in", "how to ask for help", " Use the post tool".
Whats a post tool? It was something that was designed and programmed to enable all newbies to easily gather information for their support request into one easily postable format by RussW.
Where is it? - At the top of every forum, under the Absolute Beginner's Guide to Joomla! <-- please read before posting. http://docs.joomla.org bit.
Easily spotted Forum Post Assistant - If you are serious about wanting help, you should use this tool to help you post. http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=428&t=272481

What should a post look like?

Poor posts - nothing to work with!

"Hi,
When i want to edit article I only get a couple of buttons.
On my other site, I got the same template and I got buttons like: insert table,Columns,...
How i can fix it?"
----------------------------
"I have a bit of a peculiar issue and wondering if someone could diagnose the problem.
My site looks like this:
Thanks"
-------------------------------
"No back end visiable front end ok what could be the problem?"
----------------------------

Reasonable post - at least here there is something.
"I have uploaded all the joomla website with all necessary steps, usually I am doing this but now I get this error.
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: stderror() in /hsphere/local/home/desertwe/desertpalmresort.com/components/com_banners/models/banner.php on line 115"
-----------------------------------
"hey plz help me
i m unable to add pics to my site:
steps used are firstly i upload pics to the site then m inserting the image
as m inserting pics in backend it gets added but after saving it .
it gets crashed and the pics in neither available in backend nor in frontend.."
--------------------------------------

So what now?
To sum up;
Your post should have an informative subject: try to make the topic's title as detailed and clear as possible.

•  Using one word like help! or please! will get you no where, and won't help people who search the forum before demanding/ asking for help.

•  Try to give as much specification as possible, like your version, PHP version, modules/addons affected etc.

•  Link: giving a link will probably give the community a better understanding of the problem and may result in fast help. Or provide a screenshot of your site if its on localhost.

•  Problem: a detailed description of the problem you are having and the error message you get will help.

If you want more on this subject, then please read http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html.

Oh and whats the most common question asked?  
Personaly i think it is "How do i change the Welcome to the Front Page" 

Edit added Do not ask here for support - ask on the forums

I work for a community based network of roving IT people, engineers and IT Helper. One of those roles is to attend workshops for technically challenged people and community/charity start ups.

This week i attended a community web workshop. the basics of it was;
"A surgery to help people who run a community website; but need some help to maintain or improve it along with expert volunteers to come and help out. Topics covered were seo, Google products, Wordpress/Joomla/similar free web software and writing for the web. " So I was prepared for almost anything.

For some reason i got paired with a person who wanted to discuss forum integration within their website. Their opening question was "Is a forum a bulletin board?"  (un-comfort zone)

So i had a look at their site to see what their current forum was.
[*] surprise number 1 - it was 'simplestforum'  so that meant their site was running Joomla! (comfort zone)
we discussed the other options eg phpbb and SMF for a while before looking into some of the style issues with their current forum.

[*] surprise number 2: their site was running legacy mode err why? - "no idea" they said, "our IT people set it up".
They didn't have a big list of components, just SF, a video plugin and that was about all.

[*]  Surprise number 3: their user list was about 300 people long, 250'ish of those were spam registrations. bring on the captcha recommendations or even something like Alpha registration it was also noticed that all but 2 of their 7 admins/super admins havent logged in in over 2 months!

[*] Suprise number 3: their site was running Joomla 1.5.8 ! yes 1.5.8 (1.5.9 released Jan 10th 2009) 
This led to another discussion on What are the top 10 stupidest Joomla! security tricks?  and to my horror - they didn't even know where they were hosted or what emergency plans they had.

So my suggestion was to send their IT team an email saying "we have been hacked, what are YOU going to do about it?" and see what the response was.  Then to follow up another email saying that we need everything updated the whole site, plugin, modules, components the works.

So to sum up, any one know how to make simplest forum topics flow like phpbb3 and not stagger drunkenly across the screen? and no, i wont name the website, even i am not that stupid, and you know how I am about security!

Introduction

When I decided to publish my Engineering wisdom on the internet, and later to set up a website for my Personal Development business, I knew that I would need a Content Management System (CMS) to do the job properly. Although I was an experienced Embedded Systems Engineer in a past life, I hadn't ever done any serious web publishing before so I had no idea where to start and expected there would be quite a learning curve. I ended up using Joomla!, which has done the job quite nicely. This article describes what I learned along the way, including some tips to save you time setting up a website of your own.

 If you are looking for news on Joomla! 1.6 development, look no further. Get the blow by blow action as it's happening, now.

Ever find it hard to keep up with the commits made to the Joomla! SVN repository? Well, I have the ultimate tool for you: the Official Joomla! Commits Mailing List. Its full of non-stop committing action, watch every change as it occurs, monitor the change log for entries and see which people aren't putting messages in with their commits!

You may ask where you can get all of this subversion-y goodness in your inbox and wonder the price. As an introductory offer, I'm willing to
give the first ∞ few users access for free! Yes, that's right - free access. Get in fast to secure your access today, just visit the following link, feed it an email address and I'll approve you as soon as possible!

http://joomlacode.org/mailman/listinfo/joomla-commits

Don't wait, subscribe today!

Russ Winter knows how to properly install, configure, and secure Web sites. After all, that's what he does and he's good at it. Russ also knows people and he's pretty good at working with us, too. Russ combines humorous analogies with lessons in technology, making it easier and far more enjoyable to learn. If you follow this series, you are guaranteed to learn proper Web site administration, or all about Australia. Either way, it'll be worth your time.

How come a Platypus is made up of so many different bits?
(for those non-Australian's out there, translate to:“What else do I need to know to run a successful Joomla! web site?”)

There are many great applications available out there on the web, which can help you in building a website and does exactly what you need it to. However, problems arise when it comes to linking the multiple pieces of software, in order to give your site an integrated feel and to make it easier for your users to access the content they need.

Traditionally, the solution has been to apply a hack to the software which will give you integration, but it poses issues when attempting to upgrade your software and can lead you down the path of spending many nights trying to fix your site.

Now, there’s a new solution with none of the problems of using a hack and its name is JFusion.