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Why do people respond to questions with "google it"?

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mardybear
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Joined: 2014-01-19 03:30

Re: Why do people respond to questions with "google it"?

#41 Post by mardybear »

Of course this is dependent on the user checking their Control Panel before posting their query...
Of course... :wink:

Somone could potentially be a forum member for years without ever checking the Control Panel.

Still think there should be a more visible way, such as a quick checkbox agreement when creating the account. Not that it would be enforced anyway but at least the information was presented - no excuses.
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electrovalent
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Re: Why do people respond to questions with "google it"?

#42 Post by electrovalent »

Hi,
For me there are only two answers for this question:
1) The question is already answered and the questioner was bored to search.
2) The responder don't know the answer and he is bored to help.

What is really bothering me is why so many questions? The root of this "problem" i think, is that there is no clear definition for new users what the OS he/she is using is able to do and what level of experience is required to make use of it. I know many will disagree but i sometimes hope that if someone before years had answered me to better use a different OS to do my job instead of google it, it would saved me a lot of time. Many answers out there are not applicable for single users. In the end we will see answers like "become a developer and do it your self".

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pylkko
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Re: Why do people respond to questions with "google it"?

#43 Post by pylkko »

On some forums it happens that a quite austere general culture forms around the "you should search first moralizing". Rapidly the situtation develops to where people start to feel that their own respect and prestige increases the more rapidly and more viciously they tell off lazy people. Most human beings simply cannot be told that they have not done something well, even if it is the truth, so you quickly get a quarrel. It's not very nice to read this kind of stuff, and I would like it much personally if such posts were just ignored.

Here is an example of what can happen when you do not ignore people out to use you:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=122184

filliphey
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Re: Why do people respond to questions with "google it"?

#44 Post by filliphey »

johnc0123456789 wrote: 2015-04-23 06:03 Hi all. Maybe somebody can fill me in on forum etiquette here, because I hardly ever use these things. What do people hope to accomplish by responding to a question by saying "just google it" or "I found 18 million hits when I searched this"? Every single day I google something I want to know, find a nice forum or yahoo answers or something where somebody has asked my exact question, and the only responses are 1337 geniuses telling n00bzorz to google it. I understand that people asking the same questions over and over clogs up the forum with duplicates, but if you really want to make that point to somebody asking an old question, tell them what your search term is, show them a link to the previous thread, anything constructive.

If you really want to prove how snarky and obnoxious you are, post the url of a useful search at lmgtfy.com. Everybody knows about google, every forum has a sticky about what kind of research you're supposed to do before posting a question. News flash: it takes way longer to register at a forum and create a new thread than it does to search for something, and everybody knows that too. If you are really really annoyed by that umpteenth post about why little Timmy's wifi dongle doesn't work, just don't say anything! If you don't say anything, the stupid easily googleable question slides right off the bottom of the page. I promise.

Let me tell you guys a little SEO wisdom. When you do post non-answers, guess what that does... It makes the google crawlers see the page changing, lots of activity, so the algorithm assumes something useful is happening and it bumps up the pagerank. So by actively contributing to "google it" culture, you are actively making it harder to google it.

Anyway, I thought I'd post this rant here because this site is one of the least offensive in that category. There is a great community here and I hope things stay that way, but I keep seeing room for improvement. Maybe the administrators could follow the lead of e.g. askbuntu and mark questions "closed because previously answered" with a link to the original thread. (Maybe this is already happening and I haven't seen it because I lurk so seldom)
It's great that you're reaching out to get a grasp on forum etiquette. You're correct that responding with "just google it" or similar non-constructive comments doesn't add value to a discussion and can come off as dismissive or elitist. It's a behavior that many forum communities actively discourage. Here are some common courtesy guidelines that can apply to most forums:

1. **Be Respectful**: Understand that everyone was a beginner at some point and that the question that seems trivial to you might not be so for someone else.

2. **Search Before Posting**: It's a good practice to search for your question within the forum or on a search engine to see if it has already been answered. Doing this reduces redundancy and keeps forums clean.

3. **Provide Constructive Feedback**: If a question has been asked before, rather than telling someone to simply Google it, you can kindly direct them to the specific thread where it has been discussed, or suggest search terms that might yield better results.

4. **Stay On Topic**: Try to provide answers that are relevant to the questions being asked. If you don't have anything constructive to add, it may indeed be better to say nothing.

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Re: Why do people respond to questions with "google it"?

#45 Post by arochester »

@filliphey

Do you know you are answering a thread from 2015?

steve_v
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Re: Why do people respond to questions with "google it"?

#46 Post by steve_v »

Goddamn ninjas :P
Users posts are pretty much all necros, this one is just especially ridiculous... And a little ironic considering it's a treatise on nettiquite.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

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