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Re: Search Google === RTM

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:03 pm
by RobertGonzalez
astions wrote:I remember a long time ago seeing something that basically said that telling someone to RTM was not an acceptable answer.

I don't see how telling someone to "search google" is an acceptable answer either. If your going to tell someone to search google, at least tell them what to search for.
General Posting Guidelines. There is a section for asking questions (which starts with Search) and there is a section for answering questions, which mentions to not just answer with 'RTFM'.

I think that offering someone a search term is adequate. Searching for them is too much in my opinion. When a user comes here and asks a question that has already been answered here (almost verbatim) I think telling them to search is helpful to them because it teaches them to look first before asking. Personally, I find nothing wrong with that.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 4:54 pm
by hawleyjr
This function may help if you don't know what rtfm is ;)

Code: Select all

function rtfm( $myQuestion ){

$rslt = file_get_contents( 'http://www.google.com/search?complete=1&hl=en&q=' . urlencode( $myQuestion ) );

if( strpos( $rslt ,'did not match any documents.' ) === FALSE ){
echo 'Okay to ask';
}else{
echo 'RTFM';
}

}

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:01 pm
by superdezign
Not *every* search result in Google is relevant. There's a lot of garbage online, especially when it comes to programmers who think that they are more experienced than they actually are.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:33 pm
by s.dot
I think the real problem here is just saying "google it". Instead of asking politely what the user has tried, ie: "have you tried searching your problem on google?"

"google it" comes off as a bit harsh and to a newbie, may sound like the poster has no interest in answering their question. Asking them IF they have googled, and maybe providing something to search for, shows that the user does care, but wants the OP to help themself.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:38 pm
by RobertGonzalez
I think for those of us that have been here a while, it gets a little old seeing posts like
Will this work?
or
What would happen if I did this?
or
How do you get every other row of a table to change color?
or
How do I replace each 'foo' with 'bar'?
or
What means 'Headers already sent' and how I fix it?

Most of those questions can be answered by either A) trying it; or B) searching here; or C) searching somewhere else. My response usually bypasses the 'what have you tried' routine as I like to give most folks the benefit of the doubt that they tried something. The next step is to ask them to search because in almost half of the posts I respond to the question has been asked before and a simple search would have revealed the answer to the poster.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:47 pm
by superdezign
Luckily, the posts we get here aren't usually as annoying as on other forums (Can sum1 give me source code and detailed explanation of xxx??? Plz, it's urgent!!!!!!!), and we're so active that if we all don't agree with a "Google it" post, someone will likely offer further information.

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 5:07 am
by Ollie Saunders
Hmm yes I think I'll be saying "have you tried a web search?" rather than "search in google" from now on. Otherwise you can always do the google search yourself and give them a link to the first result. Same applies to this forum.

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:44 am
by superdezign
ole wrote:Hmm yes I think I'll be saying "have you tried a web search?"
Yeah... Why promote Google? What have they done for us?? :-p
They just got lucky that they have a name that can be used as a verb. It's weird to say "Have you Yahoo'd?" "Did you MSN Live?" "Have you Excited?" "Go get Baiku'd!"

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:19 am
by RobertGonzalez
Seeing as the verb 'Google' is synonymous with the activity of web searching, I think I'll be sticking with it. But that is just me.

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 12:49 pm
by hawleyjr
superdezign wrote:
ole wrote:Hmm yes I think I'll be saying "have you tried a web search?"
Yeah... Why promote Google? What have they done for us?? :-p
They just got lucky that they have a name that can be used as a verb. It's weird to say "Have you Yahoo'd?" "Did you MSN Live?" "Have you Excited?" "Go get Baiku'd!"
I don't want to turn this into a debate. But Google has done a ton for the development and open source community. Way more than any other search engine.

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:47 pm
by Ollie Saunders
Google isn't just a search engine.

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 6:29 pm
by superdezign
hawleyjr wrote:I don't want to turn this into a debate. But Google has done a ton for the development and open source community. Way more than any other search engine.
I was kidding. Google's awesome. :)

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:03 am
by aceconcepts
Technically Google is superb.

But from my point of view they sold out.

money = power, power = control, control=China i mean...haha

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:40 am
by RobertGonzalez
Please keep this from becoming political.

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:41 am
by CoderGoblin
It is in the rules that you should ask decent questions on this board and indeed many people do. Sometimes though it seems that people simply post without taking any time themselves to try and solve something. The question is why should we spend time answering them when we could be helping someone else who needs help and has already done some investigation of their problem. How To Ask Questions The Smart Way... If people cannot spend the time doing some prelim work and taking time to compose a meaningful question I am more likely to point them to "their favourite search engine" or post a link to the php.net command they may need to use (if I know it). Of course some times people don't know the correct search terms 'chained select' being a common one and I may or may not assist by giving this information depending on how I am feeling and also the general tone of the question. Someone saying I have searched for this, this and this will be more likely to get a direct link or the necessary search term.