In certain classes of cases*, the best way to find out answers to your questions is to ask them (rather than doing your own investigation).
Not sure if that’s borderline punchy.
*For example, when trying to locate something while driving/walking around, when inquiring about poorly documented local activities, when your solution of some problem/research question may have one of many possible flaws (and thus you would need to look up each possible flaw to investigate it, while an expert may be able to spot the flaw immediately), when your quick google search fails to yield clear results, etcetera. Also see this comment.
[The starred things were edited in to improve specificity in response to comments.]
Usually the best way to find out answers to questions is to do a single google search. If present the search result that includes the domain “wikipeida.org″ usually gives decent answers quickly.
The parent would be greatly improved by replacing the ‘usually’ with a more representative frequency (“sometimes”) or including a qualifier.
You’re right—and I think this is a common failure mode of the population at large, but my most common failure mode is not finding something in a quick google search then failing to just ask someone else who probably knows while either wasting too much time searching or giving up. At the risk of the typical mind fallacy, perhaps this is the most common failure mode of the average LW member as well. If the grandparent could somehow be changed to target people like me better, I think that would improve it the most.
Not sure if I understand the difference. Doing your own research is another kind of asking (e.g. asking the internet). Do you mean asking a domain expert?
Sometimes people are willing to spend hours privately researching something — in an intellectually unrewarding and tiring state of incomprehension — when by simply asking an appropriate friend, coworker, or forum they could get a clear and explanatory answer that would much better serve their needs. Scholarship is a virtue, but wasting time and energy is not.
In technical workplaces, this is especially a problem when people think they shouldn’t ask for help, out of fear of admitting ignorance. Some folks will spend hours struggling with bad, inadequate, incorrect documentation and beating themselves up over it, for the sake of avoiding admitting to their coworker that they’re not quite sure what the third argument to that function is supposed to be.
Any suggestions for best forums for questions that don’t have obvious places to ask? I’ve been happy with ask.metafilter.com, but I haven’t used it lately.
Reddit has a number of these, e.g. /r/askscience for general science explanations, /r/answers for “everything you ever wanted to know about anything but were afraid to ask.” There are other specific Q&A subreddits for history, social science, and estimation of unusual quantities.
In technical workplaces, this is especially a problem when people think they shouldn’t ask for help, out of fear of admitting ignorance.
This is probably the biggest waste of time in tech. Who knows what isn’t identified and properly leveraged. People are punished for saving time by seeking direction of those who know better (they don’t know their jobs), and those who know better aren’t rewarded for the work they save others.
On the other hand, you also have the problem of people who will ask questions that could be answered in a 1-minute Google search or by reading the documentation, thus breaking the flow of the senior programmer and wasting 30 minutes of their time.
It does go both ways.
My personal policy is to spend 5-10 minutes searching if I’d be interrupting someone’s concentration.
In certain classes of cases*, the best way to find out answers to your questions is to ask them (rather than doing your own investigation).
Not sure if that’s borderline punchy.
*For example, when trying to locate something while driving/walking around, when inquiring about poorly documented local activities, when your solution of some problem/research question may have one of many possible flaws (and thus you would need to look up each possible flaw to investigate it, while an expert may be able to spot the flaw immediately), when your quick google search fails to yield clear results, etcetera. Also see this comment.
[The starred things were edited in to improve specificity in response to comments.]
Usually the best way to find out answers to questions is to do a single google search. If present the search result that includes the domain “wikipeida.org″ usually gives decent answers quickly.
The parent would be greatly improved by replacing the ‘usually’ with a more representative frequency (“sometimes”) or including a qualifier.
You’re right—and I think this is a common failure mode of the population at large, but my most common failure mode is not finding something in a quick google search then failing to just ask someone else who probably knows while either wasting too much time searching or giving up. At the risk of the typical mind fallacy, perhaps this is the most common failure mode of the average LW member as well. If the grandparent could somehow be changed to target people like me better, I think that would improve it the most.
Okay, well, edited it to be a lot more specific at the cost of punchiness, which I suppose was pretty much the point.
Before devoting any time to personal investigation or asking others, google the question. This works even more often than you’d expect.
Not sure if I understand the difference. Doing your own research is another kind of asking (e.g. asking the internet). Do you mean asking a domain expert?
Sometimes people are willing to spend hours privately researching something — in an intellectually unrewarding and tiring state of incomprehension — when by simply asking an appropriate friend, coworker, or forum they could get a clear and explanatory answer that would much better serve their needs. Scholarship is a virtue, but wasting time and energy is not.
In technical workplaces, this is especially a problem when people think they shouldn’t ask for help, out of fear of admitting ignorance. Some folks will spend hours struggling with bad, inadequate, incorrect documentation and beating themselves up over it, for the sake of avoiding admitting to their coworker that they’re not quite sure what the third argument to that function is supposed to be.
Any suggestions for best forums for questions that don’t have obvious places to ask? I’ve been happy with ask.metafilter.com, but I haven’t used it lately.
If your answer fits any of the categories of Stackexchange that’s usually a good place for a question.
Reddit has a number of these, e.g. /r/askscience for general science explanations, /r/answers for “everything you ever wanted to know about anything but were afraid to ask.” There are other specific Q&A subreddits for history, social science, and estimation of unusual quantities.
This is probably the biggest waste of time in tech. Who knows what isn’t identified and properly leveraged. People are punished for saving time by seeking direction of those who know better (they don’t know their jobs), and those who know better aren’t rewarded for the work they save others.
On the other hand, you also have the problem of people who will ask questions that could be answered in a 1-minute Google search or by reading the documentation, thus breaking the flow of the senior programmer and wasting 30 minutes of their time.
It does go both ways.
My personal policy is to spend 5-10 minutes searching if I’d be interrupting someone’s concentration.