1. Straight to the point, succinct title ====

2. Describe your task ====

3. Describe what you have, if anything, and what you don't like about it ====

4. Give us an enumerated list of constraints, in order of importance ====

1. Must run on MacBook Pro (Mid 2013) with 10.8 (and not 10.9)
2. Must be available outside the Mac App Store
3. Ideally takes less than 20MB of initial download
4. Big plus if it does not offer / need in-app-purchase

5. Wrap up your question, if it needs wrapping up. ====

Your goal when writing is to narrow the scope enough so that 5 questions to you for clarifications in the comments section aren’t needed. This goal is tough, though since too many details and words also is problematic. Having someone copy edit yourquestuin is needed for “wall of text” posts that read like this “wall of text” answer.

1. Straight to the point, succinct title

2. Describe your task

3. Describe what you have, if anything, and what you don't like about it

4. Give us an enumerated list of constraints, in order of importance

1. Must run on MacBook Pro (Mid 2013) with 10.8 (and not 10.9)
2. Must be available outside the Mac App Store
3. Must be code signed or on a specific App Store
4. Ideally takes less than 20MB of initial download
5. Big plus if it does not offer / need in-app-purchase

5. Wrap up your question, if it needs wrapping up.

If your post is long, get rid of all question marks except for one and have a clear single question as the last sentence punctuated with ?

Your goal in editing and showing your research is to avoid the 10 common comments “why can’t you use the native way to do this?” “Why is the workaround not workable?” “Did you Google anything?” “Did you RTFM?” by documenting you have RTFM (ideally quoting it or the section you applied) helps your question help you the most and also help the most people that need the same solution.

This is mandatory - Tell us in clear words what you're doing, or intend to do with what we recommend. If you're bulk re-sizing a bunch of pictures while converting them to another format, or looking for a game to waste time in chunks of 15 minutes - let us know with as several specific and relevant details.

This can sometimes be optional, but let us know what you've got or what you've tried and didn't like, and why. Let us know if you looked at something and decided it wasn't for you. Note - this allows for great answers that may recommend something you dismissed by explaining a feature you overlooked.

Note: Price is generally a poor requirement. Limiting the question to free or less than $x does two very things. First, limits help to others as everyone's budgets change based on how important the task is to them. Secondly, prices change (and your budget changes over time) and the cost at basecamp on mount everest or a deserted island doesn't typically match the price for London or Chicago for instance. Thirdly, once you have creceived several good software suggestions that meet some or all of the requirements - everyone can easily price out options and select an answer that's best for them at the moment they buy.

This is mandatory - Tell us in clear words what you're doing, or intend to do with what we recommend. If you're bulk re-sizing a bunch of pictures while converting them to another format, or looking for a game to waste time in chunks of 15 minutes - let us know that in specific detail focused on the practical tasks you need to solve.

This can sometimes be optional, but let us know what you've got or what you've tried and didn't like, and why they don't work. Let us know if you looked at something and decided it wasn't for you. Note - adding the why allows for great answers that may recommend the product you dismissed by explaining a feature or use case you may have overlooked.

Note: Price is generally a poor requirement. Limiting the question to free or less than $x does two very bad things. First, it limits the help to others without all of your constraints as budgets change based on how important the task is to each person. Secondly, prices change (and your budget changes over time) and the cost at basecamp on mount everest or a deserted island doesn't typically match the price for London or Chicago for instance. Thirdly, once you have creceived several good software suggestions that meet some or all of the requirements - everyone can easily price out options and select an answer that's best for them at the moment they buy.

Your goal when writing is to narrow the scope enough so that realistically, 10 answers might directly answer it.

Your goal when writing is to narrow the scope enough so that 5 questions to you for clarifications in the comments section aren’t needed. This goal is tough, though since too many details and words also is problematic. Having someone copy edit yourquestuin is needed for “wall of text” posts that read like this “wall of text” answer.