Although I was tempted to, I decided against pitting any particular Doper(s). I’ll try to keep my comments and criticism as generic as I can.
Do we look like idiots? In all your time on the SDMB have you somehow managed to miss the fact that most Board members are pretty sharp people who are more than able to plug a keyword or two into their favourite search engine? Do you think it takes a special skill, or brings a unique talent to the Board, to type “history of Sivelenia” into Google on behalf of an OP’er who asked if anyone could help him research the hisotry of Sivelenia? Or that you’re being particularly helpful because you typed “Moldavian crud + symptoms” when someone inquired about the symptoms of Moldavian crud?
Not only do you waste bandwidth (a minor transgression, I agree) but, less forgivably, you may mislead other people into thinking that you have particular knowledge or insights about the question at hand. For chrissakes, do you not think that a molecular biologist who asks about the nature of the introns on the gene encoding fas knows what ‘apoptosis’ means?
Do you remember our late friend Handy. Well, sir/madam, you are Handy reincarnate, but drive by with a few complete sentences and not just a word here or there. Some improvement! Don’t ask.
If you don’t know much about a subject, sure, go ahead, do a Google search on it. Better yourself. But don’t risk making the rest of us think you know something that you don’t. Phrased differently, and less euphemistically, stay the fuck out of GQ if you can’t keep your mouth shut about that which you know squat doodle!
Totally. This has kept me from posting in GQ a few times - I know inevitably that if I post a question I know something about, I will be condescended to and given a general history etc. etc.
How about some hate for the people who suck up bandwidth posting questions they could answer for themselves with a simple Google search? That’s what generally gets the sarcastic “Google is your friend” line from me in those rare instances when I employ it. Sure, it may not be the most helpful response to a GQ to post Google results but it sure beats the hell out of “go Google it, dumbass.”
I can’t keep my mouth shut because I’m cracking up over this.
I don’t have anything to say about the issue at hand, I just love the term “squat doodle”. Way better than “jack shit” and a dandy way to close a very eloquently written OP.
Is it possible that some people would like not only the one sentence answer but also perhaps a more lengthy reply with further details? Very often GQ generates conversations and other questions about the topic at hand, turning into a very long lecture type read. There are dumb questions like What does Egregious Mean?* that can obviously be googled but Can you steal first base in baseball?* may generate a lot of other questions.
If I may say, though, sometimes it’s hard to know just how much background an OP has. In any case, it’s likely that other people reading don’t know as much and might want to know more. Erring on the side of caution to provide a little more background than you might find personally necessary doesn’t seem to me to be an egregious offense. Condescension is another matter, and has no place in GQ.
What I have found frustrating in the past is the tendency of some posters to argue, sometimes vociferously or obstinately, based on a point they googled up and clearly either don’t understand or have taken out of context. More than once I have held back from responding to posts like that, because from past experience I knew it might take an hour or more to frame a proper response with appropriate web citations. I just don’t have that amount of time to spend these days for that (a key factor in why I’m not renewing, period).
I posted a question about a musical term I had seen used. The term was two English words used together in a way that I had never seen. I posted to GQ asking about the term and some idiot defined the two separate English words, told me a dictionary was my friend, wasted everyone’s time, and annoyed the pig.
To me, that approach defeats one of GQ’s basic functions, giving fundamental knowledge and giving it in a didactic context, with give and take, other opinions, follow-up questions, and so forth.
Sure, maybe it results in indulging lazy questioners sometimes, but I’d rather do that than miss an opportunity to join or follow an interesting discussion.
I agree Karl. This is a much needed Pitting. I would check out GQ more if it was not filled with google monsters who are wrong an awfull lot of the time. I wish there was some kind of penalty for talking out of your ass in GQ, maybe then it would be worthwhile.
Well, that’s a wussy attitude to take. If somebody condescends to you when your expertise is greater than his, condescend right the fuck back. There are few joys in life that equal putting some smug, patronizing bastard in his place.
Better yet, include in your question your level of expertise, the efforts you’ve undertaken to answer the question yourself, and the specific information you’re after to head off the “I googled for five minutes and found this” responses.
I agree with the OP that the “instant experts” who breeze through a Wiki article and then come in and pontificate are irritating and pittable. I’d also like to agree with **tiny ham ** (awesome coder) and **Qadgop the Mercotan ** that one of the wonderful things about GQ is the conversation that often ensues, usually among knowledgable people whose slight or major disagreements and discussions illuminate the subject far more the most web articles will. There are questions every day that could be answered elsewhere, but the threads that we see here from those questions are educational and entertaining and are one of the best things about this place.
