Over many years of using messageboards, forums and reddit, I’ve had the ‘search, don’t ask’ ethos drilled into me, the idea being that creating new threads to ask simple questions is a bad thing because it decreases the signal-to-noise ratio of content.
But now that we’re trying to grow a new platform, it occurs to me that a lot of appeal in established platforms is the searchable index of knowledge that has come out of people’s questions being asked and answered.
In light of that, do you think we should be creating question posts more enthusiastically to build up our library of information, even if it might be stuff that could potentially be answered by doing a reddit search?
A lot of people on kbin are here because we don’t support reddit anymore, and we are especially displeased with spez holding decades-worth of accumulated knowledge and content for ransom.
Even if they’re questions which could be easily found on reddit or with a Google search, I think it’s a good idea to ask them here (and on other instances) anyway. It will give those who are boycotting reddit a new space to search for answers, it will foster more content creation on kbin, and it will decentralise the combined niche knowledge and expertise of all netizens, so that it is less likely to be lost or held hostage again.
I think it’s also a good starting point for anyone who is usually a lurker, but would like to create quality content here to promote community growth. Ask a question you could easily search (or maybe one you already know the answer to?)
We can come together as a community to ask and answer those questions, rather than each user trying to single-handedly create valuable content from scratch, which is much more daunting.
I’ve been being a bit more lax with what I’d ask compared to Reddit and what others have been asking too, I can’t exactly google especially kbin questions and people have been helpful, and I’ve tried to be helpful back where I can.
Unless I hear otherwise I’m going to try to engage way more on here than I’m used to, adds content and starts conversations. I may make a cheese ball or bad joke here and there, maybe get an answer wrong but hey you miss all the omelettes you don’t swing at.
Yes.
New rule I have adopted - going forward, any time I struggle to find good search results on something and find myself wanting to append “reddit” onto the query, I will instead be creating the thread on an applicable forum on a federated site. I recommend others do the same.
It may not give me the immediate answer I’m looking for, but with a bit of patience we can hopefully rebuild a library of knowledge in a more stable way, not vulnerable to the whims of corporate profit.
Yes, I think so. I have the same “problem” as you where I would much rather search for something than ask a question myself which in lights of recent events needs to change so that we can stop relying on sites such as Reddit asap.
The “search, don’t ask” gate keeping is one thing that really annoys me about a lot of forums. Part of the value is not only the answer, but different users opinion and the discussion around it.
Example: when I’m looking for honest opinions on a product. I’ll find multiple discussion threads and usually find value in each thread.
“Search, don’t ask” is fine when it’s a question that doesn’t lend itself to opinions. “When is the next full moon?” would be the kind of thing you should just search. We should never gatekeep curiosity(“what causes a full moon?”), but it’s ok to say to someone “nah, I’m not gonna do all the work for you to spoonfeed you an answer.” That is to say, you can ask whatever, but if your question is a basic fact type question, no one owes you an answer either. No one here is your teacher. You need to enter the discussion in good faith, and if you just expect others to do the work to provide you an answer that you don’t want to figure out yourself, that’s not in good faith.