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How many questions can I ask?

You can ask as many questions as you'd like!

But please, only ask one question per submitted comment.

You can ask a compound (multi-part) question, but if you make your question so complicated that no one's sure what you're asking, it's less likely to be moderated up. If you have several burning questions, take a minute to organize your thoughts and separate them into multiple comments.

Answered by: Roblimo
Last Modified: 04/30/03

My question was moderated to +5 — how come it didn't get passed along for an answer?

We typically get 30 or 40 questions moderated +5, and since we only send 10 to our interview guests, not all highly-moderated questions will get asked.

Usually a number of highly-moderated questions either ask the same thing in different words or overlap so much that we send only one per topic. If yours is the one Slashdot editors believe represents that "group" of questions best, it's the one that gets picked. We tend to pick questions that have meaningful subject lines ("A Question" is not a meaningful subject line), and we prefer questions that are short and pithy to long, wandering ones. Spelling and grammar count, too. (Make sure, especially, that you spell the interview guest's name right.)

Answered by: Roblimo
Last Modified: 04/30/03

Hey, that Eleventh question wasn't even one of the highly moderated ones!

The editor who makes the final selection isn't required to select questions based solely upon their score. We use those scores as a guideline, but not a set-in-stone rule. The editor may want to ask a question of their own, or be curious about an answer, or just think that the question is particularly poignant. Besides, what fun is being an editor if you can't bend the rules to your own will once in awhile?

Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 04/30/03

The questions that were sent to ___ were awful — How could you ask such idiotic things?!

If you want to see better questions, submit better questions. Or, if you're moderating instead of asking, be extra-careful with your moderation. Remember, Slashdot readers — that's you — do both the asking and the moderating.

Answered by: Roblimo
Last Modified: 04/30/03

The answers from ___ were awful — Why didn't he have better answers?

It's hard to predict how interviewees will approach the questions asked of them. Some are quite dry and technical, some write long and detailed answers, some tell funny stories. Often, time is the biggest factor- everyone has a schedule, but since personalities vary, so do interview responses. We love long answers, but pithy ones work too.

Answered by: Roblimo
Last Modified: 04/30/03

How do I suggest an interview guest?

The best way is to submit your recommendation though the Slashdot submission bin. Please make sure you include the best possible contact information for the proposed guest. In the case of celebrities or well-known politicians who are deluged with interview requests, we appreciate a personal introduction of some sort. Believe it or not, there are people in the world who have not heard of Slashdot!

Note that we like variety in our interview guests. If we interviewed the CEO of a network security appliance company last week, for example, it is probably going to be a while before we're interested in interviewing another security company CEO.

We're open to all kinds of interview guests, from leading programmers to authors to cartoonists to politicians to celebrities to academics to businessmen. They ideally should be people who are either known to a substantial percentage of Slashdot readers or do work that touches Slashdot readers' lives in some way.

Answered by: Roblimo
Last Modified: 04/30/03

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