Hello forum admin,
Is it possible that you show a template when the user creates a new post? I know about the sticky with the guidelines but almost no one reads that unfortunately.
So if the user clicks on "new post" he gets something like this :
===
Platform: (.NET,Java,...)
The ultimate goal of the regex  : (sometimes the user doesn't state the goal (s)he is trying to achieve and instead just shows whats wrong with a regex that (s)he came up with. This prevents the people who answer to come up with a better solutions.)
Examples of text that should match :
Examples of text that should not match:
===
This type of short questionnaire would make both parties happier. I sometimes ignore questions if they are not well formed, that's frustration for the poster and for me who love to help.
Linking to the full post guidelines and stating that the short questionnaire is mandatory would make it complete

Just a thought, Tom

Tom,

This has been suggested before.  While I am responsible for the Posting Guidelines, despite popular belief I am not the Site Admin, so I couldn't implement such a change to the site even if I want to.  Conversely the folks who do maintain this site are not actively participating in these forums, so the posting guidelines aren't some they are involved with.  I don't know how willing they would be to implement them into their code, but you can suggest it.  There is a feedback section to the board, which they are more likely to see than this post.  I agree that would help some.  Though that won't stop people from posting in the wrong forum where this type of template would be less appropriate.

In case you didn't know, the posting guidelines were my idea.  I grew tired of constantly having to ask almost every new poster for the same basic information.  I got together with a couple of other then active members and we came up with the guidelines, which are pretty much unchanged today. Like you I ignore a lot of questions because they don't provided adequate info.  I vented about this in a recent blog post. http://regexadvice.com/blogs/mash/archive/2010/04/10/Grading-the-Guidelines_2E00_.aspx

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Michael

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."
Albert Einstein