A Primer for Interacting With Hackers

hack-er n.
    An enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user.

The Hacker/Maker culture is a strange one; they follow different rules out of necessity.

The culture is sometimes called a subculture. That term too often derogatory in nature for my liking. Imagine them instead as perpetual students. We are a super-culture, comprised of the best ideas stolen from all the nations on Earth.

Hackers are tinkerers by nature, if they find a better way of doing something, they aren't afraid to change what they have in front of them to incorporate it; this includes their culture.

Hackers respect those that prove themselves to be master tinkerers, those capable of whipping out elegant solutions to complex problems under lots of pressure. But above all else, they respect those that put things in action; talk is cheap, the only thing that matters in the real world are real solutions.

With these three facts, you have the foundation on which to understand all of "hacker" culture.

How to Introduce Yourself

Be Formal

Being that you haven't been around long enough to know the tone of the community, it is always best to start out formal.

Speak English to the best of your ability 

English is the universal language for hackers and you'll get a much better response if you try. They're usually very patient people, because they all once stood where you are now.

Give them a way to look you up 

It is nice to put a face to the name, and it is good to show you're a real person rather than a troll.

Give your skill level and set

Solutions a community presents you will differ depending on where your general skill set is. Plus, one of them may ask you for help in an area you have expertise in.

How To Ask Questions

Show that you searched

Don't waste other people's time by asking questions that can be easily found if you searched. If you have searched, tell the community what you found and why it didn't quite answer your question.

Be Open

Context is very important in giving good answers, and if what you were doing was really so secret, you'd be the one giving the answers, not asking the questions.

Don't be pedantic

Hackers are changing the real world, and don't have much time for the theoretical, unless it is part of an elegant solution.

Please and Thank You

They are the magic words!

Don't joke unless it is on topic

Jokes are very culture dependent, and while communicating with people that can be anywhere in the world, they may be interpreted as part of your question, not make sense, or worse, be offensive.
(Acceptable jokes are on topic and should be denoted with an emoticon, e.g. "The install left lots of extra files in my root directory, I already tried sudo rm -rf / to no avail. ;)")

Get to the point

The faster the expert can answer your question and get back to their own work, the more likely it is to be answered.

How to Share Ideas/Suggestions

If you're sharing an idea or suggestion, there are several ways that make it more likely to get that idea or suggestion worked on by the community, listed from most likely to least:

Do it

Put your idea in action, the community gets help, and you get your feature in the main product.

Attempt to do it

If you can't do it totally, do your best, then ask for help, it shows initiative.

Trade

If you can't do it at all, give a good jumping off point for your idea (your notes/research/ideas so far) and do something else the community needs that is in your ability (like updating or proofing their website, mirroring their software,  doing user testing, etc.)

Mock it up

If you can't trade, try to show how your improvement would be useful to lots of people by use cases, and do some work showing how you think the improvement would work.

Pay somebody to do it

Many communities have forums you can pay for your suggestions to be implemented, just remember that you're oftentimes getting someone far cheaper than you would otherwise.