AskMe Etiquette

March 14, 2006 1:53 PM

LazyFilter: I think Ask.Me is most helpful when people get questions answered that are difficult to answer elsewhere, or after having done some research on their own. I'm not a particular fan of "Inspired by this other ask question..." as if we need to brianstorm questions.

The latest egregious example is this thread which coming a mere 11 minutes after this other thread, I can only assume the poster's thought process was "Hmmm...thats slightly puzzling! Let me hit the Ask-a-Question button!" instead of say, doing some research on style manuals first and/or uncovering this previous thread on the exact same question. Do some research first, people!
posted by vacapinta to Etiquette/Policy at 1:53 PM (21 comments total)

To add a layer of meta, my own original post was, itself, inspired by a posting in the blue.
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:58 PM on March 14, 2006

vacapinta: how exactly were they supposed to find the original instance? Searching on 'seven'?
posted by mischief at 2:00 PM on March 14, 2006

They used the "numbers" and "parenthesis" tags. Searching AskMe for those two words alone would have brought up the original.
posted by Gator at 2:09 PM on March 14, 2006

I heartily endorse the principle of Basic Research First.
posted by Miko at 2:17 PM on March 14, 2006

Never end a sentence with ", people".
posted by Armitage Shanks at 2:20 PM on March 14, 2006

Never end a sentence with ", people," people.
posted by S.C. at 2:23 PM on March 14, 2006

Never end a sentence with "', people,' people," people.
posted by grouse at 2:29 PM on March 14, 2006

C'mon, people.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:34 PM on March 14, 2006

Soylent Grey is made out of PEOPLE, people!
posted by Gator at 2:36 PM on March 14, 2006

I want to live like common people
I want to do whatever common people do
I want to sleep with common people
I want to sleep with common people
posted by grouse at 2:43 PM on March 14, 2006

Interestingly, as I posted this I thought: Whatever I leave as my last sentence is what people will pick up on, because well thats easy.

Anyways, the focus was on the "11 minutes." If sohcahtoa comes in here and tells me that in those 11 minutes he did many google searches, other basic research and searched for past threads (even unsuccesfully) then I stand corrected. But, somehow I doubt it. There have been many good suggestions on how to manage the boatload of ask.me questions that go up everyday. It seems an easy place to start is by discouraging..."Hmmm...there's lint in the corner of my monitor...I wonder if it travels to the corner and how??? -----> [Hit the Ask.Me post button]!"

What do you say, people?
posted by vacapinta at 2:46 PM on March 14, 2006

Just never end a sentance... just step away from the keyboard and we'll all be happier.
posted by blue_beetle at 2:52 PM on March 14, 2006

Flag as a double. Hopefully deleted quickly.
posted by klangklangston at 3:00 PM on March 14, 2006

It probably took 11 minutes to compose that question.
posted by mullacc at 3:45 PM on March 14, 2006

I just had that thing of looking at the word "people" that was written over and over and it looked really wrong to me. Did you ever have that? It just looked like the strangest word.
posted by chococat at 3:49 PM on March 14, 2006

I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how many times the question has been asked, people feel that they are unique and their question deserves individual attention.

However, in some rare cases, the questions have slight differences at the question's core. In those cases, it is really annoying when people complain or simply point the asker to the other questions dealing with the same subject matter but don't address specific points essential to the new question.
posted by necessitas at 3:53 PM on March 14, 2006

I think the little game of being the first one to answer a question, and then including the google query in your answer, is the best part of AskMe. It's both snarky and helpful at the same time, and how many things in life can you say that about?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 4:25 PM on March 14, 2006

Do some research first, people!

Why should they? Apparently if they just wait 21 minutes, you'll write their term paper for them.

Flag it and move on.
posted by MarkAnd at 4:44 PM on March 14, 2006

Snowflakes are people, too!
posted by five fresh fish at 5:45 PM on March 14, 2006

I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how many times the question has been asked, people feel that they are unique and their question deserves individual attention. - necessitas

I am a beautiful and unique snowflake.
posted by raedyn at 10:22 AM on March 15, 2006

,people.
posted by raedyn at 10:23 AM on March 15, 2006