It is clear that the signal to noise ratio of the WWW is getting worse. It’s much harder to find good content when using a good old search engine. And if it’s good it is usually hosted on Reddit or Stackexchange.

So remember, even if it’s easy too Google something (well, it isn’t nowadays), we want to create a fediverse of good content that helps people (I hope). So, it’s always better to write a real answer if you have the time and energy. Please help boost the SNR and reverse the AI fueled information degradation loop.

  • jg1i@lemmy.world
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    Not sure if everyone knows this, but: if you don’t want to answer the question—you don’t have to post a reply! Crazy idea, I know.

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      what if i want to answer the question but i have none of the relevant knowledge and also don’t really understand the question itself?

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        ChatGPT, while it deserves almost all the hate it gets, is actually pretty good for that use case.

          • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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            lol … ChatGPT suggests you ask ChatGPT … then the two ChatGPT start conversing with one another and you in a three way conversation … a few minutes go by and they decide to log you off

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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      I don’t actually own this, but I saw it used once 10 years by my fathers aunts best friend. I guess it would work for what you need it for.

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
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      The issue I have is not that " You don’t need to reply." I don’t if I don’t care about you and your ignorance. Experience will teach you soon enough. But I have more than once provided detailed answers on subjects that I’m well versed and experienced in. Only to be insulted because the answer I provided didn’t fit what the person wanted to hear.

      And when that answer pertains to a life threat level activity, then I can’t help you if you reject the answer. So hey if you choose to put an unknown 200+ year old pipe bomb next to your head and pull the trigger, then Ok it’s not my accident scene. And I’m no longer concerned if you live through the experience or not.

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      Ah come now my dear sir/madam/xir, who can’t resist a bit of trolling here and a google-it there.

  • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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    So many times I google something obscure, the top result is the same question asked on some forum with a single reply, “just google it”

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      The only thing worse than someone saying just Google it is an op replying to their own post saying, never mind fixed it! (Without actually saying the solution).

      • Ech@lemm.ee
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        “What did you see, DenverCoder9?!?!”

      • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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        No I think someone saying Google it is still worse.

        The former is being intentionally unhelpful.

        Your example is being unintentionally unhelpful.

        Intentional malicious behavior is far worse than negligence.

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        The fun one that is at least a bit forgivable is “I found the solution! I just followed <long dead link to some other site>”. It’s especially fun when you keep finding multiple postings that look hopeful at first but then end up just linking back to the same dead link.

        The lesson here is that it can be helpful to future internet searchers (or even your future self) to copy the relevant information or briefly summarize it instead of just dropping a URL. Especially when linking to something like an company’s official support forum or posting as many companies will pull that stuff down eventually.

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      and worse, it’s a thread from 17 years ago and apparently nobody else except you has had the issue since.

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        You ever revisit an old problem, search it, find someone with the exact problem and as you read it think “yes… YES! This person has my exact same problem! Wait, the tone sounds familiar…”

        Only to realize you found your own post from an old throwaway account? With no replies.

        Because I have. It’s soul crushing.

    • hobbsc@lemmy.sdf.org
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      or it’s a reddit post that once contained the answer but has been deleted in protest.

  • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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    “just Google it” has always been a shitty reply. People are asking for your opinion because they want opinions from people, not some nameless site/author/whatever. Even if you’re just regurgitating information, it’s coming from a PERSON not a random article. Never mind the reliability of the source. Heavens forbid that we social creatures social about a thing for a bit.

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      “I’m not responsible for educating you”

      cool, then stfu and let somebody else or nut up and do the work if you want it done right

      • Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de
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        But this was one of the original shit replies that demonstrates the energy the person expends replying is greater than that of not replying at all. What will they do with all that self righteous energy now?

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        My favorite is when someone responds with this but any cursory search to “educate yourself” delivers information that overwhelmingly opposes what they were saying.

        “Educate yourself (using only fringe websites that I agree with).”

        • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Oh, you mean lemmy! Lol are those losers who post links to the communist wiki as a rebuttal to everything still at it? I blocked them years ago.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        Fuckin right lol? Why else do we exist, socially, if not to share cool shit with each other? Be it knowledge, a cool cat pic, a song you wrote, or eventually genetic material, arguably the “point” of sexual reproduction, maybe even life. I think now more than ever we should be hesitant to telling anyone to outsource any of that part of humanity to our AI overlords.

    • isaaclw@lemmy.world
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      I have conversations with my spouse sometimes where I am asking for information, and she reads me the article.

      I can read it myself! What did you find interesting?

    • macroplastic@sh.itjust.works
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      Unfortunately, these days it’s quite possible it’s coming from an LLM. I agree with your sentiment, you just have to always keep in mind what other possible incentives an actor on the internet may have for sharing a fact or opinion, whether it’s simply monetary (corporate wants you to buy this product), political (this state wants to you to believe this thing), or personal (this person has a grudge against this thing and is willing to use bots to amplify their discontent).

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        It’s as likely your top 30 or so pages are AI generated, paid results, SEO optimized shit, etc that’s just as unsavory. No one says you can’t verify information, and probably should anyway, be it one search result verifying another, a bunch of commenters verifying each other, or verifying the two against each other.

        • macroplastic@sh.itjust.works
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          Yep, agreed! Just advocating critical thinking. Part of the problems of pseudonymous platforms with open signups is that it makes it easy and imposes low financial cost to control a bunch of accounts that people can use for ends like that.

          Of course other websites and search engines themselves are doing the same, the cost for setup is just higher (hosting, SEO optimization, advertising, etc.)

          I don’t really think that’s a solvable issue for open platforms, which is why I think critical thinking is crucial as an advocate for platforms. That’s why I’m here!

  • Zement@feddit.nl
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    I feel like it’s 2000 all over again on the Internet. The bloat has made pages borderline unusable, and using AdBlock or NoScript reverts any so-called “design progress” back to the good old HTML days.

    Google is only semi-useful now, while pages like DuckDuckGo are starting to deliver results reminiscent of the old Yahoo or Lycos days.

    It feels like my trusty, old-school Internet skills are helping me navigate this mess. The reemergence of usenet / groups feels inevitable.

    • sheogorath@lemmy.world
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      It’s like a bouncing ball, social media starts small, and then it became bigger. It’s trending on becoming small again. In the future (barring civilization ending war/calamity) it’ll become big again due to some technological progress or shift in society.

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    The amount of times I’ve googled a problem, and the first result is a forum post of someone just being told to google it then locking the thread is way too high.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      These ones plus “this is a duplicate of <link to question that is only kinda related and doesn’t address the specific problem being asked in the newer question>”.

      Fuck busy body moderators. The people you “have power” over can see how stupid and incompetent you are and being able to shut down forum conversations about it doesn’t hide it, it just means people know not to bother saying it where you’re looking.

    • ChamelAjvalel@lemmy.world
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      I have started getting pissed at people who snap at someone “Don’t necro this post” (Or any of the numerous other things they say), on information that is well outdated that could fucking seriously use an updated answer.

      End rant…I’d prefer not, though…I want to keep this rant going.

  • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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    I’m starting to give up on Google. I’ve literally copy and pasted the same error message in Google, DuckDuckGo, and Kagl.

    Google will respond with “no results found” while the others will actually give me a response.

    • 2001aCentenaryofFederation@fedia.io
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      okay so it’s not just me then! I’ve been seeing that zero matches page more and more. It used to be the other way around, if I couldnt find something on DDG or startpage it would be on google. how did they fuck up their indexing so badly

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        I think zero matches means “we weren’t able to find any suitable ads so we don’t give a fuck about you”

        • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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          Still … they should at least get more creative and give you links like “Error 404 Root Beer” … or “Error 404 hot women in your area”

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      Yeah, I ditched Google as my default search engine a while ago. It’s next to useless and they’re a horrible company.

    • Laser@feddit.org
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      How do the results from ddg match the query? It doesn’t look particularly helpful to me, and if not, why would I prefer to wade through a number of results that are ultimately unhelpful?

      If there are no matches, I want to be told.

      • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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        The issue I was having was getting a hyper-v host to connect to an iscsi array on a nimble. That first result was pretty much exactly what I needed. It didn’t highlight it in the preview, but it was on the page once I opened it.

        • Laser@feddit.org
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          Ah, so that’s definitely good. It wasn’t clear from the screenshots, at least not for me

      • MaxHardwood@lemmy.ca
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        Even if the results aren’t exactly what I’m looking for, getting something even tangentially related can be helpful in finding the ultimate solution.

          • MaxHardwood@lemmy.ca
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            I’d say so. It’s a starting point for looking into LUN mounting issues with an incorrect host type. These results are better than nothing.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      Google knows me too well.

      My kids now get Infoblox commercials in the middle of their Minecraft YouTube videos.

    • Merlin@discuss.tchncs.de
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      Its a bit annoying when i google something and search forums and cant find an answer and i go to ask reddit or a forum and someone says"just google it" like am i really expected to make a preamble every ask-post that I’ve searched already?

  • ZeroOne@lemmy.world
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    Noooooo don’t Just Google it try, Use a Search Engine or just WebSearch it<br>

    Dont’t make Google an integral part of internet culture

    • brian@programming.dev
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      on one hand I agree. on the other, google has historically been afraid of the verb to google becoming generic, so of course I’d like to see that happen.

      I think the middle ground is say google it, but make it clear you mean google it on an alternative search engine

      • bluewing@lemm.ee
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        Yep, just like Kleenex, or Xerox, (a faded term for mimeograph/photocopy), Google has become a generic verb/term for search in virtually every language now. To google something is synonymous with search. It no longer implies a specific search engine. (I use Ghostery private search myself). Google has lost the war on their name and “It’s a Good Thingtm

        But there does seem to be a greater amount of “search entitlement” these days for even the easiest of problems. People as a very general rule don’t seem to want to be bothered by the need to learn things on their own. They expect others to provide them all the answers in an effortless format.

        I’ve even provided detailed answers to people on some ‘life threat level’ activities that were rejected because I didn’t simply reaffirm their ignorant and misguided thoughts in looking for shortcut answers.

    • udon@lemmy.world
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      I wish I had the power to make google a not integral part of the internet just by calling it duckduckgoing.

      On that note: If you talk about what you searched for last week, would that be “I duckduckgoed” or “I duckduckwent”?

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    “Check the documentation” should absolutely be a retort though.

    One of my least favorite things about the fediverse (and especially Discord and Reddit) is members asking the same simple question hundreds of times because they didn’t bother to do a simple search and didn’t bother to check obvious documentation.

    They didn’t know the documentation exists? OK, I will happily show you, and show you how to find it in general. Question only partially novel? Great, I will link an old answer and explain the rest… But I am kinda fed up with how “ephemeral” social media is, which is by design, as that repetitiveness increases engagement dramatically. Many forums should be structured more like a wiki, and its users should reflect that.

    • sith@lemmy.zipOP
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      That kind of behavior can also be a sign that the documentation is hard to find or hard to comprehend. Or that something isn’t documented at all, but the seniors imagine it is, because the answer is obvious to them.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        Me. This is me. I’m trying to figure out linux.

        “How do I do…something

        “Oh, that’s easy! Just do this and this and this. Make sure you check that that and that.”

        “Ok…now how do I do the things you just said?”

        “Just do those things the right way.”

        “I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THOSE TERMS MEAN, LET ALONE HOW TO DO THEM!!!”

        “Ugh, this guy can’t even follow simple directions. What part of that do you not understand???”

        “Uhhhhhh…core concepts?”

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.org
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          Good luck with Linux. Sorry you have to deal with people who don’t know how to teach new users.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          And then you have all the people who tell you you’re using the wrong flavor of linux and if you knew anything you would have used the version they’re using. BITCH YOU’VE BEEN TELLING ME THAT I WAS USING THE WRONG OS FOR YEARS AND NOW I SWITCH AND I’M STILL DOING IT WRONG?!

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          Maybe start with the core concepts first then, instead of diving in headfirst and flailing about.

          • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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            I don’t even know what the core concepts are. I’m still unclear by what a snapback or a flatpak are, but apperently there’s drama if you pick one over the other depending on who you ask.

            But I know they install programs…but I wouldn’t say I know what they are.

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              Snap is Ubuntu proprietary. Flatpak is community. That should be all you need to know to pick one over the other.

              Personally I prefer standard distro packages. If I want a container, I use a container.

      • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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        cmake comes to mind: I can find the docs for whatever function I want to use, but I honestly have such a hard time comprehending what they mean. It’s especially frustrating because I can tell that all the information is there, and it’s just me not being able to understand it, so I don’t want to ask others for help, cause then I’m just bothering people with a problem that I’ve in principle already found the answer to, I’m just not able to apply the answer.

        Then again, I’ve heard plenty of other people complain that the cmake docs are hard to understand…

        • sith@lemmy.zipOP
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          I can relate to this. And off the record (I know it’s not always a super appreciated opinion in the Fediverse): for this kind of problem I find that LLMs help a lot.

          • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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            Absolutely, throwing together some simple cmake is actually a great use-case for an LLM. Once I have something basic up and running, I can play around with it and figure out how stuff works much more easily

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      Maybe they read the documentation and the documentation doesn’t clearly answer their question.

      You can always just ignore their question if you don’t want to answer. Let someone else do it.

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      Rtfm and LMGTFY by themselves aren’t useful. They’re the equivalent of posting “me too”.

      If you think that the answer is in the manual and they haven’t read it, post a link to the manual. Double helpful if you reference the section.

      If you think the answer is on Google, I think we can assume everyone knows to try that first, so then no reply is needed. If it’s a particularly tricky search to phrase, maybe help with a link with a searchable phrase in it.

      But not replying is always a useful thing to do if you’re not adding to the conversation.

    • jg1i@lemmy.world
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      Check the documentation can be pretty useless a lot of times. The docs aren’t always great or they’re huge and I have a specific question. Often times I do check them, but they’re incomplete or unclear. Or the docs change or the links die.

      Just answer the question anyway and then say where you found it.

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        If you say as much in your question, you’re much less likely to get someone saying “rtfm”.

    • d00phy@lemmy.world
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      To me this is where communities having a maintained wiki is great. More than once it’s saved me from asking a question that’s already been answered a hundred times before.

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      Right, and sealioning is also a thing. If we are having a conversation where there is a presumed knowledge of some basic informationor background, I’m not going to sit here and restate that entire basis just because you got in over your head.

      • cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        definitely helps to bow out instead of talking down to a beginner. “it seems you’re having an issue with X, I would recommend reading up on Y and Z because [how they relate to your problem]” is helpful, a very natural stopping point, is useful to people who search and find the thread in the future.

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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        Okay, you’re not required to snarkily broadcast that in the conversation, though. You could just ignore it.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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      Lemmy documentation is fucking terrible.

      Ive submitted PRs for documentation to some Foss projects (not just in the fediverse space) that were rejected by the owners.

      It is some FOSS projects intention to intentionally add obscurity to their product, specifically when they monetize by paid hosting.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.worldM
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        Funny, I wrote plenty of documentation and release notes. In some cases I even got direct commit permissions to the repositories after a while.

        And if monetized projects want to have obscure docs: edit the Arch wiki.

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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          Yeah, me too. Im not suggesting all devs are assholes, but Lemmy is one example.

          When that happens I do publish the docs online and call out the devs for back stabbing their community.

  • sith@lemmy.zipOP
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    If someone actually wants help searching Lemmy or the Fediverse, I recommend this site: https://fedi-search.com/

    Very simple, but it does the job. It’s also good if one wants to learn advanced Google queries.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    7 days ago

    I agree even though I will sarcastically answer things with how easy it was to find, but I still give the information. I ask questions about things I could google myself, but I am not looking for just and answer. oftentimes Im looking for a nuanced answer and hope to find someone with knowledge around the subject that can give me a human take. not that I need a human take to know whats human because im so human myself and all. its not alien at all to me and hey who said anything about aliens. heh. heh.

    • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 days ago

      Just ask them to answer your question in the style of a know-it-all Redditor because you need the dialog for a compelling narrative or something