Look over some Exemplary Answers from the archives.
Give a hint, not a complete answer.
Hinting is a skill, and it is often more difficult to think of a good hint than it is to give a complete solution! In our environment it is especially difficult, since we don't know the people we are dealing with; we compensate for this somewhat by asking the clients to give us their current school and level of math background. Our automated system makes it easy to carry on a dialog with the client through forms on the web site, so don't feel like your hint has to be your last communication with the client. When in doubt, give a smaller hint; the client will write back if he needs more help.

Usually our clients have already tried to work the problem and they are writing to us because they are stuck. A hint is all it takes to get them unstuck; you can assume they have already made an effort. A few clients are lazy and write to us hoping we will do their homework for them (we will not). Out of these a very small number will whine piteously if we do not give them the complete answer; ignore the whining and give them another hint. (Note: if the client is a parent we usually give a complete answer, since they will do the teaching for us.)

Some good general-purpose hints you can use or adapt as appropriate:
- Suggest that they draw a picture or graph.
- Point out a special case or example that they can try first.
- Suggest a simpler version of the problem that they can do as practice (for example, a problem in three dimensions may have a two-dimensional analog that is easier).
Many questions that we receive are things you look up, not things you figure out, and hinting usually won't work for these (for example: "Who was Emmy Noether?" "What's the name of an 11-sided polygon?"). For these questions we don't give hints, but we usually don't give the answer directly either; we point the client to a Web resource where he can look up the answer. Familiarize yourself with the contents of our Links page; the links here were chosen specifically because they answer many of the questions that we receive. Contrary to popular belief, all human knowledge is not on the Web yet; you can also point the client to readily-available books such as English dictionaries (surprisingly useful), encyclopedias, and almanacs.
If you are not going to answer a question, put it on the General Queue.
Do not simply ignore a question that you are not going to answer; please send it to the General Queue so that someone else can answer it. Many of our Team Members scan the General Queue looking for interesting questions, and most questions placed on the General Queue do get answered. Conversely you yourself should check the General Queue for things you can answer. The General Queue is not a "reject queue"; most of the questions are perfectly good questions, but they got to the General Queue because the original assignee doesn't work in that area, or got overloaded, or just got tired of explaining how to set up a system of two linear equations in two variables.

Don't answer a question with a simple "I don't know"; let someone else answer it. Once in a while we get research problems; in this case it is all right to say "nobody knows" and then summarize or point them to whatever is known about the problem.
If the question has several parts, you don't have to answer them all.
Often a question contains several problems, all of which can be solved the same way. For these, you might work out one of them as an example and tell the client the others can be done similarly. Occasionally we receive a "laundry list" of 5 or 10 unrelated questions; don't feel you have to answer all of them, just do one or two. If the client still needs help with the others he will ask again.
Read the Archives.
You'll learn a lot about mathematics and how to explain it on the Web, and about what kind of Web resources there are for mathematics. You'll also see that many questions occur over and over again; you can refer to the Archives instead of repeating an answer (but usually you should give a hint instead of pointing them to a complete answer).
Be Polite.
On the Internet, no one knows you are a nice guy. Always be polite and courteous in your answers, no matter how exasperating the client is.
Ignore the Garbage and Don't take the Bait.
Unfortunately, we occasionally get non-mathematical submissions. These range from silly (or even obscene) statements such as "You guys are really geeks!" to unanswerable questions such as "Can you help me to understand differential equations for my test tomorrow?" Please send these to the General Queue, or (if they they are completely frivolous) use the Delete button to delete them. Do not respond to them. If you answer them, then your answer is cataloged in our archive. If you receive an obscene message, please forward it to Ted or Valerio and we will assure that it is deleted from the archive.

Top 5 FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) for MathNerds Team Members

I don't understand the question! What should I do?
This happens frequently. It happens not because the questions are so hard, but because when the client wrote the question he left out part of it. It's very common for us to receive a long description of the hypothesis, with no indication of the question or desired conclusion. The opposite also occurs: for example, the original problem said "Factor the following completely" followed by a long list of polynomials, and the only part the client sent us was

x^2 - 5x + 6

(that's the whole question, "x^2 - 5x + 6"). If you think the question has a missing ingredient, often you can guess what it is and answer anyway; if you can't guess, write back to the client (using the regular response box) asking for a clarification.

Tip: often clients write the question partly in the title and partly in the body; in the above "x^2 - 5x + 6" example, the title might be "Factoring Polynomials", which would really make it a complete question.
I don't know the answer! What should I do?
Put the question in the General Queue; probably someone else knows the answer and will answer it.
I signed up for questions in Number Theory and Calculus; why do I get questions about Topology?
Occasionally clients mis-classify their questions. If you get a question in an area you don't work in, put in on the General Queue.
I made a mistake in my answer! What do I do?
You can't call back the answer, because it's already been mailed to the client, but you can add to it. Just go to the same Web address you used originally; you'll see an additional empty text box, and you can add your correction and submit it. In case you don't have the original Web address, try to look up the question in the Archives. You can use the "View My Answers" action on the Team Member Main page to view just your answers. Find the desired question and click it. In the address display of your browser you should see something ending with "?index=nnnnn" where nnnnn is your question number. Then go back to Team Member Main and enter nnnnn in the Answer It section of the Quick View/Answer section.
Should I sign my answers? Looking the archives I see that some people do and some don't.
That's up to you. We recommend that you do sign them, because clients are happier when they feel they are dealing with a human and not a faceless corporate monolith. If you publish your e-mail address on the About page then you should sign your answers too, otherwise the clients won't know who you are!