Personally, when I contribute to a GQ thread, I try to cite something (even if just the relevent Wikipedia article, and often hardtext cites) that extends whatever generally simplified answer or contribution I can offer in the space and time allowed. For someone not versed in the fundamentals of the subject at hand, or when a question veers off into another tangential (but interesting) aside, a Google search just wouldn’t suffice.
There are certain posters whose replies are inevitably pointless, inane, and often counterfactual, and as much as I sometimes wish that they could be edited out entirely (you can put them on your Ignore List, but they still pop up in quoted responses) I often enjoy both reading and contributing a humorous aside.
Oh, of course. Which means you’ve also got to approach message board answers with a degree of caution. I’ve seen screamingly incorrect “answers” or commentary posted in GQ and CCC (and seen posters aggessively defend a completely stupid position, which is more than a little aggravating). Still, as jabiru said, you’ll normally get a reasonably correct answer after a time.
But whether or not you get a correct answer in GQ has no real bearing on the accuracy of information obtained from Wikipedia or a Google search.
I’m one of those who usually reacts negatively to “Why don’t you Google it?” posts (and so got whooshed recently by a sarcastic one, but that’s another story). For those who feel compelled to do this, let me make a suggestion. Instead of saying this, say something like “I just did a quick search of Yahoo and found . . .”. This might get across the admonishment without appearing to be a Dope slap.
Yes, I’m a firm believer in equal time. Why should Google get all the press?
I doubt it. Almost every time I have questioned the poster of a thead asking an easily reasearchable question why they didn’t just do the looking-up of the answer, the response has been that they found it easier to ask on this board. In short, those who are doing it know they are “using” the members of the Board to do their simple research for them.
For such people, being subtle or nice about the situation isn’t likely to change their mind. Not that I am advocating being mean, mind you; I personally suggest simply ignoring such threads, and the people who post them.
Oh, the old old days. Ancient times, when dinosaurs roamed the message boards and suchlike. You know, 1996.
It was more polite then because AOL had fairly strict Terms of Service and you were supposed to treat people with a modicum of respect or you’d get tossed. Even public chats were fairly sedate . . . even ours.
Over time that loosened up “to meet community standards” I think is how AOL referred to it, pretty soon you could say or do most anything on AOL. By then we were in outlaw cyberspace anyway, so it’s all the same.
Sorry I misread, Mr. Young. (I have been practicing more, in fact; more notes, less comprehension, apparently.)
When we started, Cecil felt that there only needed to be two forums: one for “Comments on Cecil’s Columns” that would be unrestrained praise, and one called “Other.” Ah, for those simple halcyon days.
I feel the same and Amen it. I have never understood the “Google it j@ckass” response to anything but the most rudimentary of questions in GQ. Google will bring up 100K hits on any question – and it is totally appropriate and understandable to have trouble discriminating among many different answers from seemingly intelligent (or reasonable sources) e.g. I see nothing wrong with saying “I see 10,000 Websites that say Truman Capote and Harper Lee were Cousins and 10,000 that say they were merely neighbors and childhood friends – what’s’ the Straight Dope?” and you can insert anything in there.
I would add some Dopers clearly have (or know how to use) access to information that goes well beyond Google. Samclem on first mention in print and **Walloon **on Social Security/Death/Genealogical questions come to mind - but really it is like having access to the books owned by 50,000 people. Alot, but no real near all, of that is available on-line.
There are very few places in life that you can hold peoples feet to the fire on controversial questions – IMHO and GD, while interesting to analysis and making sense/meaning of things, actually tend to naturally deform the basic facts behind these questions. GQ done right to me is asking a controversial question and getting someone some basic answers before joining the fray that an analysis of the question (As opposed to an analysis of the sources in GQ) entails.
I hardly ever think of interesting questions to ask, but I’ve learned a bunch of stuff from idly reading GQ. Occasionally someone asks a question that makes me think, “Hey! I’d like to know that too!” Had they gone off and done a Google search, I wouldn’t benefit from their questions.
I would also add that asking a question in GQ can often lead to an interesting discussion one might not have thought to pursue, based on an unexpected answer. Or an answer could lead to an interesting follow-up question. Most of the other forums are opinion-oriented, and that’s fine and fun, but GQ is like the grown-up version of the Tell Me Why books.
Here we are on page two already and no one has mentioned that GQ is where Cecil cruises, at least every so often, to pluck out some questions to answer in his columns.
So, yeah, GQ still serves a very important function.