Instead of taking offense, perhaps you could do your blood pressure a favor and look at things differently. Perhaps by telling you to search Google first, those other posters are trying to encourage you to be more self-reliant? Or that developing good internet researching skills is worth the time, effort, and practice?
Maybe you are short on time. I understand that. Maybe you don’t have the bandwith. Hey, I’m on a dialup connection, so I can certainly relate. But IMO, if you have the time and bandwith to start and monitor a thread about something, then you certainly have the time and bandwith to search for your answer yourself.
That the rest of the SDMD might want to know the answer to your question is the only point I’ll take seriously and agree with.
BTW, Google makes spelling correction suggestions in case you do misspell search terms.
Maybe you should try saying “I had a look on Google, but couldn’t find what I was looking for” - as long as it’s actually true.
Maybe other people shouldn’t have to do your dirty work for you. Maybe you should take 5 minutes to see if you can find it yourself. Maybe you’re not the only one with limited bandwidth.
Maybe there is a difference between questions answerable by people in the know, and questions answerable by anyone who can use a search engine.
Maybe you should start a thread on asking for handy tips to get you started using a search engine. Maybe you would find Google gets easier to use the more you practice.
It’s a bit rich to come in here complaining like the members of this board owe you answers to your questions. They don’t. There is no reason they should work out the correct terms and the correct spelling, wade through thousands of commercial sites and exceed their bandwidth limits to answer your question because you’re not willing to do these things yourself.
Oh, I am well aware of how to phrase my questions, thank you very much. I use Advanced searches, Boolean expressions, codecs, file extentions and specific terms. I also know how to poke around FTP servers in a way that might make you envious. I just view the “Didn’t you simply try GOOOOGLE?” posts as self-serving, self-rightious and more than a little mean spirited. If a question is below your dignity don’t pop up merely to point out your cleverness at somebody elses expense.
Man this was covered really well on this other website. I Forget the address. Just go look it up in google under . . .nevermind.
Seriously. Google rocks. But sometimes I don’t have the time to research things. I can post a question here and check it in a few hours and some of the smartest people in the world have cleared the subject up nicely. I haven’t broken a CD case since I learned the trick here. But if you have the time, look it up, you might save a little face sometimes that way. To quote myself:
Can you post a link to an example where this has happened to you? As far as I can tell, NONE of the GQ questions you’ve posted in the last 7 months have been answered with a sneering google response:
Google is great. I love Google. I have a slight conception of how to use it.
So maybe if I post a question in GQ, I don’t want quotes and links to the first 3 sources listed in Google!
Guess what? A lot of stuff on the web is crap. Just because it’s AN answer doesn’t mean it’s a GOOD answer. Spitting it back at me because it looks vaguely related doesn’t do you or me any good. There’s just no way to ask Google for an actual well-informed position on a subject. Y’know, the kind of information you get by having actual experience in a subject. Or by having read books and other wacky things like that. (Remember books?) Stuff that might be useful to the question asker…
GQ should be more than just a fancy front-end to Google, and it’s depressing when it isn’t.
(and I see on preview that Arjuna34 has WAY too much free time)
I believe this thread is what got Inky-'s spleen a’venting.
As for the specifics of that thread, I’m surprised anyone can spend several hundred posts’ of time on here, and not have an, er, inkling (sorry) of how well drug information questions are received in GQ.
In general, though, I pretty much agree. It depends on the question, though. There really are some that ten seconds with Google, using very basic searches, will answer. In that kind of case, I would prefer to sort of gently slip the google-knife in before subtly twisting it, something akin to this approach:
That’s an interesting question! I went to http://www.google.com, and entered “<question keywords>” into the search box, and found the following answer on the very first result: <answer>
There is something to be said for the overt slasher-movie style google dismissal, though.
I was a grown man, with a driver’s licence and everything, and until few months ago I didn’t know about Google.
I’d tried other search engines and found them a confusing and un-useful experience. But seeing Duck Duck Goose burst into GQ threads, mention the advantages of Google in a brusque, but not unfriendly way, and burst out again, impressed me. I tried Google myself and heaven! love at first sight.
So maybe other posters are mentioning Google more to help people to learn, not merely put them down. After all, we all know how hard it is to read the tone of cyber communications.
SmackFu makes a good point. I recently googled to do research for what I hope will appear as a casual off-the-cuff posting from me one day soon. The first (ie best match) google choice was untitled but bang on the subject.
I went there and found a nice one-page analysis, with some interesting expressions of ideas. When I’d read it all I pressed the “home” button to discover I’d read one of 20 compostions from a 7th grade class that their teacher had posted to the class web site!
Needless to say, the interesting expressions all eventually turned up word for word on other sites cited by Google. The composition was almost entirely plagiarised.
Redboss
PS I promise that one day I will actually find out what Boolean means.
PPS Arjuna34 - you’re a master! A master of posting, I mean. Like, you’re a post-master. Um, that doesn’t sound right…
I don’t have a problem with people suggesting Google or a search engine. There’s way too many threads to scroll through as it is. I do agree however that many of the posters tend to be rude when suggesting it.
Or do away with GQ entirely since the answer to any question that anyone could ask should be online or in the library, which would free up a lot of space here.
Aw come one. 90% of the questions posted in GQ could probably be answered with 1) a quick search on google 2) a search through Cecil’s archives or 3) a search through the SDMB archives. I doubt that most posters are going to bother triple-checking before every post. The people who go around invoking Google’s name at every opportunity are wasting their time and making themselves look like snots. I have faith that the mods will take care of the more egregious infractions.
And what’s the big deal if somebody asks a question that can be answered elsewhere? This is a discussion board that benefits from a wide array of perspectives and opinions that you wouldn’t necessarily find on a web site.
The bandwidth argument is kind of lame too, considering that cesspits like MPSIMS and IMHO generate the most traffic.
Ducky dear - I hope most people are trying to find answers themselves before coming to GQ, and it’s good to encourage self-reliance. But sometimes when you ask a question, you want a thought-out, tailored answer to that question from someone who knows what they are talking about, not 15,000 websites on the subject.
Google is wonderful, and it can sometimes provide information about a certain subject, but it doesn’t necessarily answer the question the person is asking. Your Google links are often helpful because most of the time you actually read the site and link to the information that might answer the question, and you are obviously a fast and diligent researcher. But “Google says…” isn’t always the answer to a question. Sometimes it’s merely a distraction. And other times it’s just snotty.
If everything can be found on Google, why even have GQ?
