It is clear that the signal to noise ratio of the WWW is getting worse. It’s much harder to find good content when using a good old search engine. And if it’s good it is usually hosted on Reddit or Stackexchange.
So remember, even if it’s easy too Google something (well, it isn’t nowadays), we want to create a fediverse of good content that helps people (I hope). So, it’s always better to write a real answer if you have the time and energy. Please help boost the SNR and reverse the AI fueled information degradation loop.
Not sure if everyone knows this, but: if you don’t want to answer the question—you don’t have to post a reply! Crazy idea, I know.
what if i want to answer the question but i have none of the relevant knowledge and also don’t really understand the question itself?
ChatGPT, while it deserves almost all the hate it gets, is actually pretty good for that use case.
ChatGPT just told me to “google it” :D
lol … ChatGPT suggests you ask ChatGPT … then the two ChatGPT start conversing with one another and you in a three way conversation … a few minutes go by and they decide to log you off
Just Google it.
Ah come now my dear sir/madam/xir, who can’t resist a bit of trolling here and a google-it there.
I don’t actually own this, but I saw it used once 10 years by my fathers aunts best friend. I guess it would work for what you need it for.
As a software engineer…
Don’t just say “just Google it”. Guide them to the documentation. Ask them about the detail of the question. If it’s an bug, try asking them if they can reproduce the bug.
This reminded me of the time I’m looking for how to do certain things in a software. I found a reddit post asking about the same issue and this is the reply OP got:
Here is the link: https://old.reddit.com/r/i3wm/comments/mupjsf/how_to_showhide_i3status_bar_taskbar/
Imagine. You search the issue you have. Found the ONLY reddit thread that talks about this, and the ONLY thread that talks about the issue have NO USEFUL ANSWER and, worse, the only reply is TELLING YOU TO SEARCH IT YOURSELF. This got upvoted too 😭😭😭.
Luckily, I found the solution (tbh the solution was there in the docs, but the wording wasn’t clear and it makes it hard to search) and I end up replying the OP the actual answer.
So, this is a PSA for the fediverse: be nice. It’s free.
While we’re still young, we have a chance to become a better forum.
Also possibly an unpopular opinion: you shouldn’t downvote a question, even if it was asked multiple times. Guide them to the answer instead
Wow that is infuriating.
Something, something, recursion.
Has this same energy: https://xkcd.com/979/
Even worse is when they edit their post to add “Never mind, figured it out.”
These people should be unable to reproduce. Just as soon as they edit the post, a shriek of agony can be heard for miles.
I ran across an example of this recently, on fucking Github. Bitch it’s your goddamn issue ticket, on a fucking dev site, and you returned to say you figured it out but can’t be fucked to explain how? GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I’ve posted my solution to my own question a few times (the rare occasion when I’ve been unlucky enough to have an unsolved problem, and lucky enough to fix it).
It’s extra work but every few years I get a note of thanks or up vote, even a decade or more later.
That insulting is satisfactory
Also Google results differ since like a decade. It may show for you in California, but its nowhere to be found for me in Iran
Looks like you solved your problem by RTFM ;-)
I’ve never seen this acronym, but I’m pretty sure it says reading the fucking manual
its a website that has man pages for stuff.
But what about woman pages? smh so much for inclusion
damm true.
Just google it.
As funny as that is, I can’t imagine Google would want to hide anything more than this piece of knowledge right here.
ftfy
So many times I google something obscure, the top result is the same question asked on some forum with a single reply, “just google it”
or it’s a reddit post that once contained the answer but has been deleted in protest.
and worse, it’s a thread from 17 years ago and apparently nobody else except you has had the issue since.
You ever revisit an old problem, search it, find someone with the exact problem and as you read it think “yes… YES! This person has my exact same problem! Wait, the tone sounds familiar…”
Only to realize you found your own post from an old throwaway account? With no replies.
Because I have. It’s soul crushing.
No, because I went back and answered my own question.
The only thing worse than someone saying just Google it is an op replying to their own post saying, never mind fixed it! (Without actually saying the solution).
yeah i really hate that
No I think someone saying Google it is still worse.
The former is being intentionally unhelpful.
Your example is being unintentionally unhelpful.
Intentional malicious behavior is far worse than negligence.
“What did you see, DenverCoder9?!?!”
There is always an xkcd!
Never say just, and if you bother answering be proper about it
Check on Ecosia!
Imagine asking chatgpt and it tells you to “Google it”
Didn’t it already tell some teen to kill themself recently? It fits right in with the worst of the internet.
I assume that grok did that, just because that’s on brand
This will be Gemini in 2025
Did you mean “Don’t reply, just google it”? /s
Search engines are mega sucky these days, but Wikipedia has never been better. I find myself going straight to wiki any time I need a quick fact or basic info.
Hear hear! We’re all witnessing what can happen with something nice, if you nurture it and keep improving, slowly, instead of the new pattern of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish or insisting on extracting maximum value. Modern Wikipedia is often rich in content and fun to use. I love it :)
Wikipedia is an internet gem
I give them a few quid every month. Might be the only regular donation I’ve got going at the moment (was being the sole earner for 3 until recently so yeah, rebuilding slowly)
I can’t imagine just how much more lost we would be if we had an internet without Wikipedia…
What would we be using, some form of online Encarta? Ugh.
I feel like it’s 2000 all over again on the Internet. The bloat has made pages borderline unusable, and using AdBlock or NoScript reverts any so-called “design progress” back to the good old HTML days.
Google is only semi-useful now, while pages like DuckDuckGo are starting to deliver results reminiscent of the old Yahoo or Lycos days.
It feels like my trusty, old-school Internet skills are helping me navigate this mess. The reemergence of usenet / groups feels inevitable.
It’s like a bouncing ball, social media starts small, and then it became bigger. It’s trending on becoming small again. In the future (barring civilization ending war/calamity) it’ll become big again due to some technological progress or shift in society.
I never say it like that. But I’ll tell people I found it by searching it. People really need to learn how to search first.
“Just ChatGPT it” is going to become a thing.
“Just make shit up” is basically saying the same thing.
Until it gets paywalled
and ill throw that suggestion into the fucking trash.
Just googlw it is unfortunate shorthand for “learn it by doing research and troubleshooting”, a skill sadly very scarce. I agree it’s toxic and unhelpful. Guiding people to be better at finding information on their own is the way.
Asking someone else a question is also doing research.
Can’t argue with that.
If you don’t show me that you at least made some effort to investigate: No.
Its a bit annoying when i google something and search forums and cant find an answer and i go to ask reddit or a forum and someone says"just google it" like am i really expected to make a preamble every ask-post that I’ve searched already?
i really expected to make a preamble every ask-post that I’ve searched already?
Yes. You need to show your effort, otherwise your question will be considered lazy. This is specially true regarding technical issues in volunteer forums.
The seminal essay “How To Ask Questions the Smart Way” explains these and other finer points.
When I ask someone for clarification via their expertise, I usually reflexively indicate that I cannot trust google because of the incursion of AI slop, and even if it shows THEM accurate results, it is no guarantee that it will show ME those same results.
If someone actually wants help searching Lemmy or the Fediverse, I recommend this site: https://fedi-search.com/
Very simple, but it does the job. It’s also good if one wants to learn advanced Google queries.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work in Tor Browser
