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.
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.
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Why not just reply with Search it?
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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.
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.
As a software engineer…
Don’t just say “just Google it”. Guide them to the documentation. Ask them about the detail of the question. If it’s an bug, try asking them if they can reproduce the bug.
This reminded me of the time I’m looking for how to do certain things in a software. I found a reddit post asking about the same issue and this is the reply OP got:
Here is the link: https://old.reddit.com/r/i3wm/comments/mupjsf/how_to_showhide_i3status_bar_taskbar/
Imagine. You search the issue you have. Found the ONLY reddit thread that talks about this, and the ONLY thread that talks about the issue have NO USEFUL ANSWER and, worse, the only reply is TELLING YOU TO SEARCH IT YOURSELF. This got upvoted too 😭😭😭.
Luckily, I found the solution (tbh the solution was there in the docs, but the wording wasn’t clear and it makes it hard to search) and I end up replying the OP the actual answer.
So, this is a PSA for the fediverse: be nice. It’s free.
While we’re still young, we have a chance to become a better forum.
Also possibly an unpopular opinion: you shouldn’t downvote a question, even if it was asked multiple times. Guide them to the answer instead
Looks like you solved your problem by RTFM ;-)
I’ve never seen this acronym, but I’m pretty sure it says reading the fucking manual
Just google it.
