Thoughts on forum searching, Google and the Play Store

[Crashdamage]

The phone manual is always a good place to start learning. Google search too.

 

[Frisco]

The phone manual is always a good place to start learning. Google search too.

Four things, my friend. 1. The forums would not exist without questions such as the OPs or any other member or guest. 2. Thousands of people land right here after a Google search. 3. We're happy to see them all, no matter their question; none are dumb, even though often the first time user here will feel embarrassed to ask what seems to them a simple question.

And 4:

Android Fourms is a source for answers, not a clearing house that points people to Google, even though now and then we will provide a link to a pdf manual along with our informed responses.

 

[divinebovine]

As i always say, the replies here BECOME google results and AF is usually quite high up in the list. Id be pissed if i googled something and the top result was someone saying "google it"

Happens to me constantly.

It's a tough balance to strike...we're here to discuss, but OTOH too much repetition buries good info too.

One thing I never do is just say "google it". I might say "google for this term that really produces the right results" or I might post a search URL. That produces the following results:
- Answers question
- Points out that searching would have worked
- Provides a lesson in effective search terms for that question

 

[D-U-R-X]

As i always say, the replies here BECOME google results and AF is usually quite high up in the list. Id be pissed if i googled something and the top result was someone saying "google it"

Thanks... tea nearly came out of my nose when I read that about Google search results saying "Google it"!

Happens to me constantly.

It's a tough balance to strike...we're here to discuss, but OTOH too much repetition buries good info too.

One thing I never do is just say "google it". I might say "google for this term that really produces the right results" or I might post a search URL. That produces the following results:
- Answers question
- Points out that searching would have worked
- Provides a lesson in effective search terms for that question

You're doing the right thing, if you're helping someone to refine their search... especially if you also provide a link to some pertinent info

 

[funkylogik]

It all comes down to how its said imo.. the intent behind it. If youre trying to make the person feel stupid then thats not on. If its a genuine suggestion and like DB says, offer a good keyword suggestion then thats cool :beer:

 

[Crashdamage]

No intention of offending anyone. My answer was meant to be taken sorta like the old saying 'If you give a man a fish...but if you teach a man to fish...'. IOW, I've found the most basic questions often are best answered by first (gently) prodding the questioner to look in the most basic places for themselves. In that way they learn more, and learn faster, most important, learn independent thinking.

 

[divinebovine]

No intention of offending anyone. My answer was meant to be taken sorta like the old saying 'If you give a man a fish...but if you teach a man to fish...'. IOW, I've found the most basic questions often are best answered by first (gently) prodding the questioner to look in the most basic places for themselves. In that way they learn more, and learn faster, most important, learn independent thinking.

Agreed, but "google it" isn't teaching a man to fish, it's telling him to fish.

The gentlest way and most encouraging to say it, in addition to what I said earlier about providing appropriate search terms, is to point out that they'd get instant gratification. "Search for terms that I just tested that produce the answer and you'll get the answer right away instead of having to wait for someone to reply."

 

[Frisco]

No intention of offending anyone. My answer was meant to be taken sorta like the old saying 'If you give a man a fish...but if you teach a man to fish...'. IOW, I've found the most basic questions often are best answered by first (gently) prodding the questioner to look in the most basic places for themselves. In that way they learn more, and learn faster, most important, learn independent thinking.

Thanks for explaining.

Do have to stick with this, though: They come with questions. We provide answers as best we can. We don't send them elsewhere, although as I mentioned we'll link to a manual download, an XDA instructional page, etc.

We want them here and to rely on us, they already Googled, most of them. I did in 2010; that's how I ended up here.

Thanx again, good on ya for explaining your motive.

 

[funkylogik]

Yup it was google that brought me here back in the day on my Zte Blade when i got my s3, id forgot about this place and used android central. The mods and even the payed writers were stuck-up smartasses on the forums so i looked around and rediscovered AF. what i love is how people genuinely wana help and not just boost their pathetic geek ego to their geeky minions with that aloof arrogance.
Thats why i feel kinda protective of this site.. its a rare thing to find a community like this online :beer::beer:

 

[MoodyBlues]

No intention of offending anyone. My answer was meant to be taken sorta like the old saying 'If you give a man a fish...but if you teach a man to fish...'. IOW, I've found the most basic questions often are best answered by first (gently) prodding the questioner to look in the most basic places for themselves. In that way they learn more, and learn faster, most important, learn independent thinking.

Thank you for the explanation.

Another reason someone may post--regardless of whether or not they've already tried searching for answers--is that sometimes DIRECT responses from actual people they can interact with are just better. I've done that many times over the years; I don't mean just here necessarily, but on all types of forums. For example, I might want info about a particular printer, but I want REAL WORLD experience from someone(s) I can carry on a conversation with. Maybe they've seen or learned or found something that they can pass on, or vice versa, that I'd never know about if I just let my friend Google do the leg work.

 

[funkylogik]

^^ also, real people can understand what it is youre lookin for better than googles algorithm can because we can read a whole paragraph instead of a few keywords so we understand the context and google doesnt follow up by asking a question to narrow the search down like a human can (yet) :beer:

 

[sherri]

Uhhhmmmm.....Has anyone else noticed the OP disappeared?????

 

[funkylogik]

Uhhhmmmm.....Has anyone else noticed the OP disappeared?????

Lol yeah i noticed.. maybe he googled it and found better advice

 

[mikedt]

Uhhhmmmm.....Has anyone else noticed the OP disappeared?????

Think I lost the jist of this thread as well.

I got a question though...

How come Google is a transitive verb, but Bing, Yahoo! or Baidu are not?

"To Google for something." vs "To Yahoo! for something."

 

[mikedt]

Lol yeah i noticed.. maybe he googled it and found better advice

...maybe he even Binged it and found the advice he required?

 

[funkylogik]

Lol id use the word bing in that way if anyone around me had a clue what bing is

 

[mikedt]

Lol id use the word bing in that way if anyone around me had a clue what bing is

LOL... I know I've used "Google" as an adjective sometimes... "A cheapo Googleless tablet from Ebay."

 

[MoodyBlues]

How come Google is a transitive verb, but Bing, Yahoo! or Baidu are not?

Well, personally...you know my, um, feelings about all things micro$oft, right? So I not only never USE Bing, but I certainly wouldn't go around SAYING it. Heaven forbid! :laugh: And isn't Yahoo! now owned by M$ as well? So there you go.

 

[divinebovine]

Think I lost the jist of this thread as well.

I got a question though...

How come Google is a transitive verb, but Bing, Yahoo! or Baidu are not?

"To Google for something." vs "To Yahoo! for something."

Google is a diluted trademark because they dominated their market during the formative and coming-of-age years in which society coined such terms. I think it probably helps that the word itself is conducive to being used that way since it flows well and communicates clearly across accents/bad connections, as well as being unique (since most people are completely unaware of its namesake the googol). Bing is easily mis-heard, Yahoo needs a consonant at the end, and Baidu is not well-known in the English-speaking world (as well as suffering from hypoconsonentism)...and nobody remembers Altavista (whose name is too long anyway).

 

[divinebovine]

Well, personally...you know my, um, feelings about all things micro$oft, right? So I not only never USE Bing, but I certainly wouldn't go around SAYING it. Heaven forbid! :laugh: And isn't Yahoo! now owned by M$ as well? So there you go.

I felt the same way until two recent events:

1. Google lost the lead they had in the "do no evil" category when it was found that they knuckle under just as easily as everybody else when the government comes threatening. For this reason, I search first with startpage.com, which uses a subset of Google's database and does its best to anonymize my data.

2. Google started censoring their results in a way that cannot be disabled. I'm not using Google Image Search to look for porn (that can be done elsewhere much more effectively! ) but sometimes it is now much harder to find something like a silly picture whose caption I half-remember, because it gets filtered...the suggestion of adding another keyword to your search to make it more explicit ignores the effect that the extra term would naturally have on your results. If you take my example of a silly picture, adding the word "porn" as suggested is NOT going to give me the result they're censoring, even though the picture may contain explicit content...it'll give me a bunch of porn that I'm not looking for.

Again I use Startpage but its image search isn't very good, so I hit up Bing image search. Let me tell you, if you want uncensored unfiltered results...Bing image search is where it's at, in all my years of using Google image search with safesearch totally disabled I've never gotten as severely explicit results as I get with the most innocent Bing image search with safesearch disabled. Google Seppuku should be called Bing Seppuku.

(And that concludes my 3 non-multi-quoted posts on varying subjects.)

 

[EarlyMon]

Posts moved here from another discussion - if something seems a little wonky, please just roll with it - overall, the discussion still holds up.