Fediverse

"Just ChatGPT it" is going to become a thing.

Remeber for a while there used to be this website you'd create a link, which would direct you to a portal that would type your question into Google and hit enter. It was let me google that for you dot com or something.

It always felt like such a passive aggressive dick move 😂 when people just wanted answers from a real human they could interact with

We're all stupid about some things, but googling stuff has genuinely gotten harder these days. The answers are full of ads and AI garbage

While I agree that the search engine has gone to shit, the problem I have with people who ask really simple questions is that they haven't done the bare minimum to ask for help.

Simple questions have fairly popular answers and even an enshittified Google search will return the correct result within their fucking AI.

If you have a simple question and the answers seem confusing, tell us why the answers are confusing. Don't just ask the question.

Being able to Google your question is an important skill, but so is asking a question in a forum. Since forum posts are at their very nature asynchronous, being able to do your own searches shows those who are trying to help you that you have the skills to read their responses and extrapolate to your situation and then take the appropriate action.

I provide a lot of free support on various Linux and developer forums. The sheer number of people who want me to hold their hand is too high.

Imagine asking chatgpt and it tells you to "Google it"

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.

Recursively google searching is an interesting case of the halting problem.

Just googlw it is unfortunate shorthand for "learn it by doing research and troubleshooting", a skill sadly very scarce. I agree it's toxic and unhelpful. Guiding people to be better at finding information on their own is the way.

It’s too bad ChatGPT will never replace a real Reddit thread:

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.

Or start any replies with « just google it « to mess with AI learning 😏

There's a few things I hate people for regardless of context and one of those is lmgtfy links