A great strategy when getting started is to seed or pre-populate your site with some questions. It's a brave person who asks the first question, so help them out by creating a few questions and answers. 

When thinking about your first questions it's a good idea to plan your topics and how you'll use them. Users will then be able to follow your example when asking their own questions.

Ask a question

The fastest way to ask a question is to go to Questions in the sidebar and start typing your question. Similar questions will be suggested—if the question doesn't already exist, choose the Ask question button to create it. 

You can include attachments, code samples, pictures, @mentions and more in your question. If your question's private, or only applicable to one team or project, you can ask it in a space. 

Answer a question

Any user that can ask a question can answer a question. You can up vote helpful answers, and down vote unhelpful or incorrect ones. 

Accept the best answer to indicate to other people that your question has been answered. The accepted answer and highly voted answers appear above lower voted answers.

You can only accept answers to your own questions (unless you're an admin).

Find questions (and answers)

There are a few ways to find questions and answers:

• Search – See questions in the quick search and full search results. There's even a filter for questions.
• Browse – View recent or unanswered questions, your own questions, or questions on a particular topic.
• Watch – Be notified by email when new questions are added to a topic you're watching.

Questions also appear in the Popular tab of the Confluence Activity feed.

Watch a question

To stay informed about a specific question, choose the Watch option. You'll be notified when answers and comments are added to the question.

You can also watch a whole topic or choose to watch all questions to be notified when a new question is added.

Answers vs comments

Add a comment when you need to get more info or clarify a question, or if you want to discuss an answer.

Ask in a space  

Sometimes a question only relates to one team or project, or just shouldn't be visible to everyone. By asking a question in a space, you get the benefit of the space permissions. Only people who can view the space can search for and see questions asked there. 

To ask a question in a space, go to the space and choose Questions in the sidebar  (if you can view the space, you'll be able to ask and answer questions). Alternatively, you can go to  > Ask a question and choose the right space from the drop down. 

Only the question is private—topics are visible to everyone who can use Questions. For example, if you ask "How much is the staff bonus this quarter?" and add the topic 'bonus-q4' in a space that only senior managers can see, other people will be able to see the topic 'bonus-q4' and that there's one question for that topic, but not the question itself.