Every time someone replies to a thread with something like "Just Google it", I cringe. I'd like to note that this thread is in no way was the result of any experience I've had here on Gamedev.net. It's just a trend I've noticed on the internet as a whole that I think can be quite annoying for the following reasons: 1. You can't ask a website questions if you don't understand something, or wish to discuss some aspect of it further. Even questions with simple answers at face value can often merit more intricate discussion. Someone could easily look up the article for IEEE 754 floating point representation on Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean they'll necessarily understand it. 2. It's rude. If someone takes their time to come to you with a question, no matter how easily you can find the answer on Google, you should be polite and answer the question, and as a side note, mention that Google can be a great tool to find answers to such questions. How would you react in a situation outside the internet when someone asks a simple question which you know the answer to? 3. Adding "Google it" offers nothing of value to a conversation. If you don't have anything interesting to say, is it really so hard to simply ignore the topic? There's no obligation to reply to everything you read. If you simply want to inform the person that Google is a valid means to find an answer, doing so in a manner as described in point 2 seems more appropriate. 4. Finally, I think it sometimes pollutes the signal to noise ratio of the Google searches themselves. I've run into a situation a couple times where I tried Googling for some information and what I found was people on random forums asking the same question, followed by a "Google it" response. I guess this point may be debatable since you could say that I would have otherwise just found an empty thread with no answer and this would be equally useless to me, but I wonder if maybe someone who would have otherwise given an answer would be deterred from posting it, as they may have assumed the person who asked the question has already found a satisfactory answer via Google.

On the other hand, I think that in certain situations this is entirely relevant.

When questions are framed in a broad, vague manner, or when typing that exact question into google nets a simple and precise answer I think it is more rude of the person asking the question than those who suggest they google it.

After-all, why should someone else help you when you won't even help yourself?

Quote: Original post by M2tM
After-all, why should someone else help you when you won't even help yourself?

But then, as point 3 states, if you have no interest in helping them, why bother replying at all?

I would suggest that if it did not occur to the original poster to "google it" in the first place, it is helpful. If you provide the exact search phrase with a service like lmgtfy then it's directly helpful. I'll agree with you a link to the most relevant result of a search would be better than the simple "google it" advice.

I'm just saying there are some pretty dumb questions that are asked in some circles and especially if there is a high chance of that person continuing to post similar questions it is healthier for everyone involved if they learn to learn. I should clarify, there aren't really dumb questions because you really do need to learn even simple stuff, but there are dumb ways to ask questions and this is what I mean.

Certainly being told to go find the information is better than being met with complete radio silence due to stupid question phrasing. I would rather get a helpful but passive-aggressive response than none at all.

I'm not suggesting I ever just respond with "google it" but sometimes I use lmgtfy and I think it is both helpful and makes the point that the question should have been asked in a search engine as the answer is readily available.

Quote: Original post by M2tM
I would rather get a helpful but passive-aggressive response than none at all.

I'm not suggesting I ever just respond with "google it" but sometimes I use lmgtfy and I think it is both helpful and makes the point that the question should have been asked in a search engine as the answer is readily available.

As to the first point, I don't see why the choice has to be between "no response" and "passive aggressive response". It's a false dichotomy. I see no reason why a third option of a polite response supplemented with a suggestion of using google in the future has any reason to be ruled out.

As to the second point, I disagree that it's helpful. It's smug and impolite and can be damaging to the entire community when the person asking the question feels scorned. Sure they get their answer and the point gets across that they could have used google, but the polite option does the exact same thing without the scorn. This seems clearly a superior option to me.

Yes, there are many times it is not appropriate, but there are also times where it is.

Consider when someone posts a very basic question, and the top X hits are all comprehensive answers to the question.

We could simply restate everything that is already listed on the top Google hits, but that is really a waste of everybody's time.



In that case, I have no problem with a LMGTFY link and a follow up: "There is a lot of info already out there. What exactly are you struggling with that you can't find online?"

There is a correct way to ask a question and a lazy way. If a user followed the advice of this well known document, then I do not think anyone would answer with Google it. The problem is people do not for example:
Say what they have done
Where they have looked
Show what they have so far etc etc.

When somebody answers with "Google it" then it is generally because the user wants someone to molly coddle them, force feeding the answer. In this sort of situation I would myself reply with RTFM or Google, if the question currently had no reply.

There was a journal entry on this site which is very appropriate to this thread, talking about how people pre-Google learnt and how a number of people are becoming lazy in their research. Yet for the life of me I can not find it :(
Link anyone?

Quote:
This seems clearly a superior option to me.

Then you're welcome to take that option. The rest of us will choose to reply as we see fit.

I'm not really clear on what the purpose of this thread is.

Quote: Original post by jpetrie

Quote:
This seems clearly a superior option to me.

Then you're welcome to take that option. The rest of us will choose to reply as we see fit.

I'm not really clear on what the purpose of this thread is.

That's fine of course, I was certainly never trying to suggest you shouldn't be allowed to. I suppose I just wanted to rant and open a discussion on something that I don't fully understand and this seemed like the appropriate forum.

Quote: Original post by CandleJack
It's just a trend I've noticed on the internet as a whole that I think can be quite annoying for the following reasons:
...
2. It's rude. If someone takes their time to come to you with a question, no matter how easily you can find the answer on Google, you should be polite and answer the question, and as a side note, mention that Google can be a great tool to find answers to such questions. How would you react in a situation outside the internet when someone asks a simple question which you know the answer to?

You're correct that it is rather blunt to simply reply with a Google link. It says "This is where you get the answers."

But it is also impolite to ask a question which is answered with a trivial amount of work. If you have a very basic question that is obviously answered with a simple web search, you end up wasting the time of hundreds or even thousands of people by posting the question on line.

The few seconds of laziness (posting without searching yourself) can incur a cost an hour or more of collective global intelligence. If people reply with a flame war, it can consume quite a few hours. And isn't that even more rude and wasteful than the quick LMGTFY link?