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.

  • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    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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      2 hours ago

      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

      • Rogue@feddit.uk
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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”

  • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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    5 hours ago

    “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.

    • sad_detective_man
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      4 hours ago

      “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

      • vithigar@lemmy.ca
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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).”

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        2 hours ago

        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.

      • Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 hours ago

        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?

    • macroplastic@sh.itjust.works
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      2 hours ago

      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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        21 minutes ago

        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.

  • Harvey656@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Fine I’ll just tell people to Duckduckgo it! /s

    Jokes aside I agree with this message. Better to give at least a basic idea on where to find something, or just don’t be a pedantic cock and give me the damn link, your word is not good enough okay buddy, pal, friend.

  • jg1i@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    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.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    A “real answer” is rarely as credible as an article with quotes including time and place, as well as citing statistics and peer reviewed studies. In fact, I’d wager the amount of misinformation on Lemmy is a very high ratio. People are even writing entire fanfictions about current events to fit their narrative.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      A “real answer” is rarely as credible as an article with quotes including time and place, as well as citing statistics and peer reviewed studies.

      Depends what kind of learning is needed. Fixing a car, I have found rando-on-the-Internet to be a far more effective resource, than peer reviewed sanitized but irrelevant information.

      Different tools for different needs, and all that.

      People are even writing entire fanfictions about current events to fit their narrative.

      Impossible!

      (This is sarcasm, meant to purposefully demonstrate your point.)

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    6 hours 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.

  • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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    10 hours ago

    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”

    • pezhore@infosec.pub
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      9 hours ago

      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).

    • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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      9 hours ago

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

      • clif@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        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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      9 hours ago

      or it’s a reddit post that once contained the answer but has been deleted in protest.

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    “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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      9 hours ago

      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.

      • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        make 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.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        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?”

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          3 hours ago

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

        • 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?!

    • jg1i@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      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.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

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

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      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.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      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.

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      7 hours ago

      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.

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

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

    • d00phy@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      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.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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      8 hours ago

      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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        7 hours ago

        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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          6 hours ago

          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.

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    13 hours ago

    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:

    screenshot of a reddit thread where OP got a rude reply to search it themselves

    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

      • hono4kami@slrpnk.net
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        12 hours ago

        That’s why when I left reddit I don’t delete my posts (even if those posts suck)

        Bonus:

        a screenshot of deleted reddit comment with a reply thanking the parent commenter

        • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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          8 hours ago

          I can kinda get the sentiment. I left during the protests too and I can see people wanting to damage Reddit, which is also completely deserved. Of course now Reddit is respecting the right to your comments even less and scrapes them for Google’s LLM models.

          • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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            4 hours ago

            Eh. I torched all my comments when I left (and posts, too) and I’ve said before and still maintain that I’m not sorry in the slightest.

            If anything wants to know anything I said that was relevant to anything (and not the usual cavalcade of political bickering) they can come here and ask. I’ll gladly retype any of it.

            Fuck reddit. The quicker we can dispose of it and just rip that Band-Aid off, the better.

      • Deebster@infosec.pub
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        12 hours ago

        Or scrambled all of their posts after APIgate (or whatever we’re calling it). Perhaps they came here, which means OP is right in saying we can be a new source of useful answers.

        • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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          I’m not sure if Lemmy or other Fediverse posts even get indexed by any of the search engines. I’ve yet to see any in a search result.

            • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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              I guess it’s a matter of lack of good posts that could become the desired search result then. Time will tell if we ever get to that point.

              • Deebster@infosec.pub
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                12 minutes ago

                The way that all the copies of the content link to the original post should be some kind of SEO hack. I wonder if it’s triggering specific rules in search engines that detect it and downrank it as cheating.

      • datavoid@lemmy.ml
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        I don’t feel bad about wiping my account, as almost everything on it was useless.

        Also I was pissed off at the time, and my goal was to make more people dislike going on Reddit.

  • sith@lemmy.zipOP
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    9 hours ago

    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.

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
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    11 hours ago

    When I ask someone for clarification via their expertise, I usually reflexively indicate that I cannot trust google because of the incursion of AI slop, and even if it shows THEM accurate results, it is no guarantee that it will show ME those same results.