Merge pull request #7309 from amueller/how_to_ask_questions

[MRG + 1] How to ask questions

AUTHORS.rst

@@ -64,3 +64,8 @@ The following people have been core contributors to scikit-learn's development a
   * Nelle Varoquaux
   * `Gael Varoquaux <http://gael-varoquaux.info/>`_
   * Ron Weiss
+
+Please do not email the authors directly to ask for assistance or report issues.
+Instead, please see `What's the best way to ask questions about scikit-learn
+<http://scikit-learn.org/stable/faq.html#what-s-the-best-way-to-ask-questions-about-scikit-learn>`_
+in the FAQ.

doc/faq.rst

@@ -27,6 +27,41 @@ See :ref:`contributing`. Before wanting to add a new algorithm, which is
 usually a major and lengthy undertaking, it is recommended to start with :ref:`known
 issues <easy_issues>`.
 
+What's the best way to get help on scikit-learn usage?
+--------------------------------------------------------------
+**For general machine learning questions**, please use
+`Cross Validated <http://stats.stackexchange.com>`_ with the ``[machine-learning]`` tag.
+
+**For scikit-learn usage questions**, please use `Stack Overflow <http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/scikit-learn>`_
+with the ``[scikit-learn]`` and ``[python]`` tags. You can alternatively use the `mailing list
+<https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/scikit-learn>`_.
+
+Please make sure to include a minimal reproduction code snippet (ideally shorter
+than 10 lines) that highlights your problem on a toy dataset (for instance from
+``sklearn.datasets`` or randomly generated with functions of ``numpy.random`` with
+a fixed random seed). Please remove any line of code that is not necessary to
+reproduce your problem.
+
+The problem should be reproducible by simply copy-pasting your code snippet in a Python
+shell with scikit-learn installed. Do not forget to include the import statements.
+
+More guidance to write good reproduction code snippets can be found at:
+
+http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve
+
+If your problem raises an exception that you do not understand (even after googling it),
+please make sure to include the full traceback that you obtain when running the
+reproduction script.
+
+For bug reports or feature requests, please make use of the
+`issue tracker on Github <https://github.com/scikit-learn/scikit-learn/issues>`_.
+
+There is also a `scikit-learn Gitter channel
+<https://gitter.im/scikit-learn/scikit-learn>`_ where some users and developers
+might be found. 
+
+**Please do not email any authors directly to ask for assistance, report bugs,
+or for any other issue related to scikit-learn.**
 
 How can I create a bunch object?
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