The forum works best when questions arrive already distilled to their irreducible difficulty. Many threads remain unanswered because the original poster has not yet extracted that core. A straightforward way to do so is to submit the question to your own language model before you submit it to other people. Ask the model to reason step by step, justify each move, and then audit its result twice more from scratch. You will either obtain a solution or you will surface the one fragment that still resists resolution, which is precisely what others need to see.
Here is a simple workflow that has proved reliable for me:
Capture the exact error message, API response, or code block as plain text or screenshot.
Paste it into your model with the instruction “Explain the failure, propose a fix, and verify the logic in three independent passes.”
Challenge each proposed fix: “Why would this change work? Under what conditions would it fail?”
Repeat until the model can no longer improve its answer.
If the issue is solved, you are done. If not, post the distilled remainder along with the model’s reasoning and the tests you already ran.
Following this procedure accomplishes two things. First, it resolves a large share of problems immediately, saving time for everyone. Second, when a question does reach the forum, it arrives with a complete diagnostic trail, making it far easier for another developer to confirm the gap and supply the missing link.
If you find the method useful, feel free to reference this post and expand on the checklist. The goal is a forum where every thread begins after one rigorous, documented pass through the author’s own AI assistant.