this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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I feel "just fucking google it" culture is toxic and driver away new users on a lot of discussion boards.
Dumb questions that could be easily answered with a search engine or AI are not my idea of ideal discussion and I don't see a point to retaining it. "Noob questions" are fine, using a discussion board as a first resource for a basic question is not.
It really really depends.
"What time does ASDA shut?" - well the answer involves someone in the comment section googling it, I can see the "just Google it" frustration.
But
"Why is the bottom of my 3D print really messy?" - anyone who could claim to be intermediate at 3D printing would know that it is either a support material issue, or maybe they haven't got "bridging" settings turned on. Replying with "a simple Google would find it was an issue with bridging" but the person asking the question may not even know that phrase to use.
Edit: I like to do the old "this is what i think it is, but here are some terms you could use to better understand in case my solution doesn't work"
That second scenario you've described is why I loathe this "just fucking google it" mantra.
Searching for stuff needs some amount of information to begin with. You need to know what search terms to use, which means you have to know something about the problem you're trying to solve. And a lot of times, that is precisely the problem: not knowing what even to include in the search query. With a human on the other side of the tube, it's something that could easily be remedied with a few follow-up questions, but a search engine can't do that--nor do you want for it to do that.
EDIT: Clarified things.
Changed "And a lot of times, that is precisely the problem: not knowing how to formulate the search query" to "And a lot of times, that is precisely the problem: not knowing what even to include in the search query."
I agree to an extent. I feel discussions have lost depth online. Since most of the time online users don't have the same caliber as one may be more used to in the 2010 and prior era of the internet. I feel, on sites like Reddit, i leave discussions feeling more confused and/or exhausted rather than enlightened.