If you had to quantify it a bit, what is a polite/appropriate amount of time/effort to spend looking for an answer in other places, and at what point is it okay to get lazy, stop researching, and ask your question here? Or what can message boards like SDMB provide that researching articles can’t? Some/most of the General Questions asked could just be googled, and researched by looking at some articles. Knowing nothing about them, I could answer half of them if I did some Googling, even if it would take awhile.
Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to be lazy. Is it okay to ask a question here if I don’t want to spend the 5 minutes to find my answer online? What if it’s 30 min? 5 hours? …
Personally, if I just want a generic answer to a question, I’ll just Google it and find the answer like 99% of the time.
If I post here, it means I want more than just an answer, I’m interested in a conversation of said subject.
Somewhere between 90-100% of my industry knowledge is available on the internet if your Google-foo is strong. And given today’s standards of “If I think it, it must be true” there is a lot more opinionated, mythical trash than actual facts that you’ll have to sort through. Even then, you’ll be tempted to say to yourself, “Well, this ‘fact’ is very prevalent, therefore it must be a solid one.” when actually it’s just a frustratingly pervasive myth. And even if you see the myths for what they are, real understanding comes easiest when knowledge is accompanied by 1st hand experience or discussion.
So you post HERE when you want to see multiple experts pick each other apart over little details while completely ignoring the 98% of subject matter they agree on; when the Googlewebs aren’t understanding what it is you want to know; when you want someone to Google something for you, snidely tell you that’s what they’re doing, and then give you a link instead of a synopsis. It’s as much about the show as the dinner.
That the crux of it for me. The resulting conversation usually reveals a bit more information, personal experiences, etc.
Sort of like how the SD columns could have probably been 25% their size but Cecil Adams would include extra info, examples, cites and a bit of humor.
If you are dissatisfied with the first page of results on Google, go ahead and ask the SDMB.
I go to Google if I want dry information. I come here when I want opinions or some discussion/debate on the question.
When my Google-fu fails me.
When the first leads to differing answers I am right off to the Dope. The exception is the “which movie had that mutant with the punk outfit” and then its right off to CS.