Stupid Question Asking

[Andara Bledin]

This isn't about asking inane questions. This is about being stupid and asking questions that could have been answered with almost no effort.

I'm pretty active on forums and read a lot of stuff all over the Internet, and it irks me every time I see someone asking a question that they could have answered for themselves if, instead of asking other people to do their work for them, they had just expended a minimum of effort on their own behalf.

It's not like they don't have the whole of the Internet at their fingertips; they asked the question on a forum or comments section or someone's Facebook wall in the first place.

It's gotten to the point where I don't answer such questions any more. I'm not going to hand the answer (which I usually just found by taking 30 seconds with Google) to someone who wasn't interested enough in the answer to actually look it up themselves.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

On the other side of this, I know a message board that's dying a slow death, at least partly because when a new person stops in and asks a question, someone answers with a very rudely-put "Google it," or else an equally-rude order to search the forum for old threads. (Especially troublesome, as useless as many forums' search functions are, and the relevant thread might have been years ago.) And especially when it's a "what's that thing I don't know the name of for" type of question, where you can explain what you mean in a conversation well enough but don't know where to begin a search.

The last time I got an "I can't believe you couldn't find this out on your own" response (not on that site), I had in fact done quite a lot of searching, but the person complaining that I would dare ask such a question happened to include a search term it hadn't occurred to me to use. (It was a "why" question, and all I got were pages and pages of results that only answered "what." The missing term that yielded a "why" answer was the current year.)

[Andara Bledin]

The question that prompted me to post this had all of the relevant search terms in the question itself and the answer could be found on Wikipedia. It's that level of apathy between not caring enough to ask and caring enough to ask but not quite enough to be arsed to actually spend the two minutes it would take to get the answer.

^-.-^

[Lachrymose]

It also sucks when someone takes the time to explain, but the explanation goes unrecognized.

[Gravekeeper]

I could understand if it was something a bit involved or a complex topic or was the center of an ongoing debate. But its always something really simple that could indeed be answered, at length, by Google in under 30 seconds.

Conversely, I've learned quite a bit about a myriad of topics on these forums just by researching topics I didn't know enough about to post an opinion on to begin with.

[Racket_Man]

It also sucks when someone takes the time to explain, but the explanation goes unrecognized.

try having it happen at your job.

many moons ago I worked for a semi-global company. one division was in San Franscisco I was at the Corp HQ in Chicago. they had a local processing (as in all programs were run at a machine locally)/main summary (all local machines would communicate with the master machine at HQ and dump all the previous days job data to be summerized).

I could set my watch by what time the phone rang in the morning. it was always they person at the SF division wanting to know how to reset/restart something. I sent numerious e-mails with detailed instructions, talked to their boss, talked to MY boss (VP IT) and still the stiuation continued until we consolidated everything to on machine at HQ

[Lachrymose]

I always have it happen at my job. I'm in IT also. It's practically in my job description.

[aurelemsrealm]

I see this happen a lot of forums. I also see a lot of "Google it" answers in response to those questions. While I understand not wanting to waste time helping those too lazy to help themselves, I don't really understand why people bother responding at all. If I don't think something is worthy of my time, I just simply ignore it and move on to something else. I think it's a waste of time and effort to dignify such questions with a response of any sort. That's just my view on pointless questions.

[DrFaroohk]

Yeah typically the time some people spend lecturing you about how easy it would be to find the answer yourself could have been better spent just answering the question.

I can't usually be bothered with that. I asked a question. Relevant responses are either A) the answer to my question or B) nothing.

I don't even really see a difference between coming into fratching and saying "How can I increase my sexual performance?" and going to google.com and typing "How can I increase my sexual performance?" In both cases, you type your question, and in both cases, someone else types your answer for you. The only different is on the google example, someone typed the answer before. They could just as easily have been douchebags about it and said "GO READ A MEDICAL JOURNAL YOU LAZY DICK!"

And then the guy who writes for the medical journal could be like "GO TO COLLEGE YOU LAZY DICK!"

It's better to just answer the question or say nothing at all.

[protege]

Nearly every forum goes through this sort of thing. It seems to be a combination of user laziness, and/or a search function that sucks.

Case in point, I belong to several MGB message boards. Nearly every week, some twit posts a message asking about tire sizes. We've covered that topic multiple times. So often, that it's usually on the first page of the forum. All it would take is a little scrolling down with the mouse, and *one* click to open it. Yet, the twit in question just *has* to ask again...and then "can't understand" why sometimes people are rude about it. Seriously? We just answered the question on the thread *immediately* below yours. You know, the one titled "Which tire size do I need?" Are you fucking dense, or can't you be bothered to click on it? That's a sure fire way to not only annoy people, but make them want to strangle you.

[Dreamstalker]

My Ghostbusters forum is that same way. Not so much with obscure questions about the films or series, as those threads can be hard to find and we love re-debating questions like that anyway (although I think "are the uniforms khaki or gray?" needs to die already...recently every new member has opened with that question ).

Most answers to prop questions are easily found, as every possible question has been asked and conclusively answered. Most of us will give a newbie a break and actually link them to the thread they want while explaining the search function, but a handful of guys can be jerks about it.

Now if a person is held by the hand a few times but continues to spam "how do I do this"...they don't get a free pass. 100 posts is more than enough time to find your way around the site.

[Hyena Dandy]

Yeah typically the time some people spend lecturing you about how easy it would be to find the answer yourself could have been better spent just answering the question.

I can't usually be bothered with that. I asked a question. Relevant responses are either A) the answer to my question or B) nothing.

I don't even really see a difference between coming into fratching and saying "How can I increase my sexual performance?" and going to google.com and typing "How can I increase my sexual performance?" In both cases, you type your question, and in both cases, someone else types your answer for you. The only different is on the google example, someone typed the answer before. They could just as easily have been douchebags about it and said "GO READ A MEDICAL JOURNAL YOU LAZY DICK!"

And then the guy who writes for the medical journal could be like "GO TO COLLEGE YOU LAZY DICK!"

It's better to just answer the question or say nothing at all.

Wait... Uh, I'm confused. You get better at sex by reading medical journals?

O_O I've been doing this all wrong!

Edit: Wait. Does reading medical journals AT college count double for sex?

[Andara Bledin]

My whole point in starting this topic is that if I can copy the question and paste it into Google and get the answer, then why the hell didn't the person asking do just that?

I do that all the time, myself. So instead of asking idiotic (classic definition) questions that don't advance the discussion, I can add the information to the thread and move it forward.

^-.-^

[DrFaroohk]

Cuz it's just easier. Sometimes google can be confusing, especially when thinking about how to phrase a question. You might ask "What's this large brown spot growing on my penis?" To which Google might just give you a list of web pages about spot remover, the Browns, and penis enlargement technology. Or you might find a bunch of web pages from 2002.

I'd just assume ask a real-er subject, such as a person on a message board. That way I'm opening up to more human responses and I can also ask followup questions if I need to.

[Boozy]

I think you're misunderstanding what Andara's talking about. There's a difference between asking, "What could these spots be?" and, "What's the capital of Ohio?"