Add getting help

docs/getting_help/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+# Getting Help
+
+Before asking for help, it's very important for you to try to solve your own problems.
+
+The most important thing you can do is read your log files, and look for things which are out
+of the ordinary compared to rest of the pattern. A good place to start is at the end of the file,
+however due to use of parallel processing, this is not always the where you'll find the problem.
+
+Words to look for to isolate a problem:
+- `segmentation fault`
+- `killed`
+- `error`
+- `fail`
+- `warning` -- sometimes
+
+Be sure to check case.
+
+You can use `less` to browse a log file and `/` inside `less` to search. Use the keyboard to move around.
+
+When asking for help, it's important to fully explain the problem you're having, this means explaining
+- what you're doing, including anything out of the ordinary
+- where you're doing it (what computer, and how you're accessing it, i.e. locally/remotely, SSH, X2Go, wifi, ethernet, inside/outside Douglas network)
+- what the error/problem/unexpected result you're getting
+- the complete paths/access to the inputs, outputs, and logs
+- what you tried to do to solve your problem (in detail) and the results
+
+For more background on getting help, these documents are excellent in understanding how to communicate about this:
+- https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
+- http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#beprecise
+- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
+- https://stackoverflow.com/help/minimal-reproducible-example

docs/index.md

@@ -11,4 +11,4 @@ about_the_platform/index.md
 getting_started/index.md
 using_the_system/index.md
 research_methods/index.md
-
+getting_help/index.md