Nevermind, have figured it out.
Described: Why whenever I figure something out myself after posting a help thread, I'll write a whole report on what I did before it got fixed (because often I'm just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, and I never know what exactly moved the needle)
Those threads with "fixed it!" and no instructions? If they're on reddit, I'm posting "I deleted system32 and the problem went away!"
If it's Linux related say "open a terminal and do sudo rm -rf /
" for similar life-ruining effects.
Why do I always click on these even though I know exactly what it will be?
xkcd is so good I don’t mind reading it over and over
Me, who completely nuked twelve years worth of Reddit posts and comments which were often one of, if not the only relevant search result to an extremely niche problem.
Oof yeah. Finding a reddit thread with your exact query as the title, getting excited to see a comment, aaaaand... It's "This comment was deleted by EliteUltraEraser Premium TM. I value my privacy,...."
(I do get it though. And who knows, maybe this will actually help in the long run ~~and not just lead to increased usage of Discord communities so ask the same thing over and over and over again because they aren't fucking publicly searchable god I hate what Discord has done to the searchability of issues in the tech space~~?)
Oops, might have gone a little off topic there.
Ah, I think my edible just hit, that explains it
Yeah that's really unfortunate :( worth it though I'd say. Just gotta build the knowledge base back up in a better place :)
Depending on how you nuked it, reddit might have just restored the comment behind your back. My reddit account shows 0 posts/comments, but a month ago I got a reply to a comment in a post I made five years ago providing instructions on how to get a game working in Linux.
"Why are you trying to do [x]? Have you tried doing [y] instead?"
"You shouldn't do [y] either, you idiot, you absolute fucking buffoon. You should instead do [z, which costs a fortune and/or requires you to restructure your entire life]"
Thread closed [x] already answered please go to link: completly unrelated topic actually about [a]
And the link points to a solution from 2006 using a method that's been outdated and unsupported for a decade.
goes to goople
searches '1980 cx500 only runs on one cylinder'
comment from 2007: "replace this module right here:"
[broken Photobucket link]
edit: might as well add the problem. lol
if the carbs are clean and tuned well enough to be ruled out the problem is likely the CDI as they are over 40 years old and are known to fail. if replacing the CDI doesn't seem to make a difference the problem is likely the ignition system on the whole. the next step in the process would be the stator but since you have to pull the motor to change it you may as well go ahead and rebuild the ignition system with modern components. there are a couple different aftermarket solutions such as Ignitech. i opted for Rae-San.
So much was lost with PhotoBucket. A mind boggling amount of information is just gone.
People who write a whole novel about "google is your friend" and try to make you feel stupid for asking a question are the ultimate assholes. You wrote 3 paragraphs just to bully a stranger on the internet when 1 sentence could have answered the question. Thanks for being a royal knob head.
I just googled 'is google my friend' and google told me it was not my friend. Help.
Here is a comprehensive Guide how to do [x]:
{20 paragraphs of Background Story}
[x] is Impossible to do, you dumbfuck
And this is why I have always hated every single jackass that responded to a question with "just Google it" even when Google didn't completely suck cock.
If I had just one single answer from a reputable source doing that, I wouldn't be asking real people. Search engines were never infallible. Niche topics have always garnered shit results.
Or someone asked a question on Reddit and got an answer, but then it was removed due to a protest. All you get is the reply “Thank you so much! It works now”
Honestly I was so mad when I noticed that whole thing kicking off... I had SO MANY PROBLEMS solved by finding answers on reddit...
Obligatory: Fuck Spez... Greedy POS.
Wrong!
Google: How to do xyz
7 million AI generated SEO optimised bullshit websites: Here's you do xyz (we don't know either but we use lots of words Google likes so we get put first)
This was always dickhead behaviour, but not for the reasons you guys are circlejerking about. Often the answers to these questions are extremely easy to find online (even today, Google is nowhere near as useless as people make it out to be). But the entire point of asking other people through social media or a forum is because you want to engage in discussion with other humans. That's literally the entire point of these websites: to foster discussion, both for the sake of learning and for the social entertainment we all need. People who sign up to them and then completely shutdown attempts to start discussions are absolutely braindead and don't understand any of this. Modern forms of social media only encourage this kind of performative social interaction. So many people seem to think the sole purpose of discussion-based social media is to dunk on others with a vicious reply and "win" by earning more points (ratio) instead of having an actual back and forth discussion with another human.
I mean, there has definitely been a noticeable and significant decline in the quality of search engine results, particularly on Google. It used to stand out at least a little bit from Bing (a search engine that went very hard into inserting ads into results early on), but they've essentially become indistinguishable. Aesthetics and connections with other platforms like Gmail and YouTube have become the only real reason to stay with one over the other.
Literally happens all the damn time anymore
Whole first page is ads and threads of people saying, 'Just Google it,' 'There's a search function here for a reason,' 'thread locked due to frequently asked question,' etc, etc.
I miss the earlier days of the Internet where people were more helpful. Or hell when Google wasn't just ads and SEO crap.
I FOUND A STACK OVERFLOW QUESTIONS RECENTLY THAT WAS LITERALLY THIS!
Nr. 1 accepted answer (lots of years ago): something something plenty of information available on Google, no need for this thread
Nr. 2 answer (way fewer years ago): seeing as this is now the first Google result for anything relating to this, here's how you do it.
(shame I can't remember what exactly the question was. Please still believe me? 🥺)
It was even wrose when there was a site by the name "let me google it for you", which insulted you while made an animation about how to use this "not evil" website google. You google "how to do [X]" find a nice looking forum, and people either are angry that OP didn't google it, or they deceptively linked to a lmgify page.
After a month of suffering, I instead reinstalled Windows XP, which I had a lot of trouble with (fugly UI, stability issues, performance issues, etc), but not as much as with the "king of stability", Linux.
And when you finally find some helpful forum with content from 15 years ago, you’ll have someone be like “GUYS I FIGURED IT OUT! Here’s a [broken] link to someone else who solved it” with a dozen or so “Thanks, that solved the issue immediately for me!” Comments after it.
All those letMeGoogleThat links from the 00s have turned into Rick Rolls (figuratively speaking).
See also: The less hostile but equally useless advice to "Search online"
More than once I’ve had Google return a years old reddit thread with only 2 or 3 comments that just say “I don’t know, let me know if you find out.” What in the shit is going on that THAT is somehow the SEO winner?
Ad partner > relevance
God, I feel this in my bones. I always hated the scumbags who acted this way so much. I'm really glad I'm not the only one...
I tried to get into making Skyrim mods, but some basic info just isn't on any forums. I then find it discussed on discord servers as if it's common knowledge discovered a while ago, but those same servers also perpetuate myths from Morrowind that were debunked a decade ago by an experienced modder. However, that modder is also a toxic asshole who's now impossible to work with, so finding reliable info from him after 2018 is hard. All the while I'm just sitting here wondering if it's even worth the effort.
Anybody remember this site? Google used to be so good that anybody with half a brain could find a good result if they would just type a basic phrase into it.
it's crazy how those comments are aging like milk precisely because google/web search is going to shit (in addition to being dickhead comments ofc)
just weird to look back and think about how we thought it would never change
"Have you tried rtfm?"
I hate that shit. People answer with "check page 72 of your car manual" and it's like ... you clearly pulled out the manual to pull that page number, I'm under my car right now, just copy the damned sentence.
Not sure about [x], but here’s how you do [y]
Me scrolling through 150 stackoverflow pages and 'helpful' third party websites that don't answer my question
196
Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.
Rule: You must post before you leave.