AIBU to think "Can't you find that out yourself" (Caution ranty)

[mirtzapine]

EG Type It In To Bloody Google.

Especially if they're using the internet.

I just read a thread here where someone asked a question about history and politics.

Why not just type the thread subject line into google/bing/duckduckgo/youtube/dogpile/wikipedia (whichever your preferred search engine is) and open some of the results and start to form an opinion. And then use that information to do deeper searches.

its not just here, in my professional capacity, the amount of IT staff (even the "Senior" ones), who don't know something and don't know even how to search for it.

Is it just plain laziness?

Is it a need to be spoonfed?

In the IT world there is stack exchange its a parent of a load of Q&A sites.

stackoverflow for programming, serverfault for system administration and superuser for user issues.

Any IT person worth their salt should use them, yet the amount of highly paid fuckwits I've encountered, who can't find the basics and expect an answer to be handed over.

Example.
Server Administrator of one of the top five Re-Insurance companies.

Me "Can you tell me the assigned IP address of xyz server?"
Him "Its a windows box, I dunno how to do that, I'm unix"
Me "Well its ifconfig on unix, windows its ipconfig"
Him "Oh! thats really similar"
Me "I didn't know we were running unix here? What flavour? Sun? Sco?"
Him "OH! we stopped being a unix house about 10 years ago and it was RHEL"
Me "Me Ten years ago? Haven't you been on a course, Read one of the Microsoft Press books or serverfaulted?"
I'm actually leafing through the Windows 2008 Server Admin books he has on his desk, while I'm saying that.
Him "Yeh! but I wasn't really interested serverfaulted whats that?
Me leaning over his keyboard typing in serverfault.com into his browser address bar. "That!".
Him, "oooh! that looks interesting I might bookmark that"
Me internally facepalming and thinking... no wonder finacial service firms get hacked all the time.

It often stuns me that people either can't RTFM or google the bloody answer.

I mean if the question was posed... what were your personal experiences of xyz historical event then I could understand wanting to mine the collective wisdom and experience of mumsnet.

Another example, What's Rhodesia?" is not the same as What's your experiences, feeling and opinions concerning Rhodesia_

Grrrr!!!! Gah!!!! Bloody Bloody . G-d!! I enjoyed that rant

That is something I often think when reading some threads on here.

I kind of agree but your example went flying way over my head. I have to ask my IT to speak to me as if I'm a 4 year old hamster with half its brain missing.

You need Let Me Google That For You in your life:

lmgtfy.com/

Say someone says "what is Rhodesia anyway?" You go to that website, type in their question, and it gives you a link to copy that, when you click on it, does a little animation of someone typing the question into Google and getting the answer. It's an incredibly cheeky/satisfying way to answer stupid questions.

YANBU! I have a friend who asks stupid questions on FB constantly. It's not endearing dear, do feck off and use google!

YANBU! I have a friend who asks stupid questions on FB constantly. It's not endearing dear, do feck off and use google!

I innocently asked someone once what JFGI stood for, guess what they replied!

perhaps (sometimes) you'd get some gratification from let me google that for you

1 of my friends asked on facebook this week if anyone was selling a 3/4 bed house in a certain area.

I was so tempted to reply

www.rightmove.co.uk

ah, toomuchtooold, is faster on the keyboard than I!

definitely agree Op. Alot of threads on here I just think that it would have taken the same time to type the question into Google as to write the post.

I have learned a lot on here from threads asking things the ops could have just googled so I don't think it should be encouraged on here, in rl it pisses me off though.

I like the unanswerable questions I get asked at home.
I.E.
'Why is bloke across road not driving his work van anymore?'
Why is there more traffic lately?'
'What is Russia playing at?'

I'm sure my family think I'm extra important and people run shit past me, Putin calls me to discuss Crimea bloke across road pops round to chat about his travel plans etc.

With regards to MN I think the site itself would be a bit fucked if everyone googled first I think I know the thread you're talking - it's a bit shifty to bring it up btw. The difference with Google is that on a forum people can relay first hand experiences, it can be more helpful or reassuring than just hard facts. It can also be more interesting if posters can say that they were there, offer tips.

In the real world, it's irritating. On forums its sort of the point.

But people come on here and ask questions just to get a chat going. If we all google questions there would be no MN, would there? It's a chat forum and about getting people's personal opinions and experiences.
And I didn't understand a word of your OP, why did you not just help him?

I meant to say shitty not shifty.

shakinstevenslovechild to a certain extent I agree and that's the beauty of Q&A sites. But a good question gets good answers, an un-thoughout question gets lots of other questions seeking a bit of clarification or "what the hell are you on about".

Its only going to get worse with "Ok! Google" or Siri actually, I just did OK Google What's rhodesia and I got back "what the teacher"... doh!

What? Would you like to re write your post in a way that doesn't make you look like a twat

With work stuff I agree.

On MN it's more varied. It really pisses me off when the OP asks a question and someone comes along with that 'can I google this' - it usually shows they've failed to grasp what was being asked IMO.

toomuchtooold
I've never seen lmgtfy.com before - brilliant - i'll use that loads!
Thanks

LadyBeagleEyes I did help him.

_ Him "Its a windows box, I dunno how to do that, I'm unix"
Me "Well its ifconfig on unix, windows its ipconfig"
Him "Oh! thats really similar" _

I was endeavouring to highlight the difference between one letter, and if anyone's interested it is down to patent and copyright infringement between Bell Labs, AT&T and Microsoft (could help someone if they're using the terminal on a mac as well).

wigglesrock I was not bringing up any thread in particular, I could have said "what's bread" as an example (actually I should have done as Rhodesia is incredibly emotive to some people - my bad). And Farming and Baking. If there has been a thread about Zimbabwe, History and Politics which has caused angst to people I apologise now.

Ah, I think in fairness that sometimes on MN people start a thread to ask a question because they want a bit of a discussion about something. Eg, if I'm wanting to buy a pram, I can go to the website that sells it and I can read the buyer reviews. Which is useful. But sometimes you read the reviews and think 'oh, but I wonder what would happen if...' and you can't find anyone mentioning it in the reviews. So I can start a thread here and someone posts saying 'I've got that pram, it was great except for...' and then I can ask the person directly what they think about how it steers/how well the raincover fits etc. Its just chat really.

I do get a bit more frustrated when people post something like 'does anyone have the phone number for a taxi company in XXXX town?', because in that case it would take them far less time to actually google it than it would to type the question!

Binkyridesagain No... I'm not going to deprive DW of hours of fun she has to post about her twat of a DH, the twat things I do and the twat opinions I have and my general twattyness regarding twats and their twat like twat-isms.

But even then treacle, the person who asked about taxi firms may get replies from people that have used a really good one or a really bad one. They won't get that info on google.

very true LadyBeagleEyes, people like a personal recommendation, and I don't see anything wrong with that.