I don't see how? Unless I (generic) am explicitly asking a particular other individual to answer an arbitrary query (which is not what gleamed as context from your post), a “search query via social media” isn't a request to anyone specific to do anything —the expectation would be *at most* for someone who already knows the answer to type it out (or link to a resource where it can be found).

1/n

or even the understanding that we're creating an environment where knowledge is shared, and if at any time in the future the “answerer” happens to have a question of their own, they might find an answer in a similar fashion.

3/3

@oblomov But not really because even if I know something is true, I’d need to validate it. And the right thing would be to provide a link. In which case, I’m doing the Googling—which is unpaid labour.

If you think Google is shit, why are you asking me to wade through Google’s shittiness?

Either way, no good conversation comes out of this. Rather, it’s a disrespectful waste of time.

hard disagree. When answering a “social media query” you do not *need* to validate it. If you can provide a link in support to your answer, that's a nice plus, but not a requirement. And people that do choose to provide a link (again: a choice; not an obligation) may do so from their list of bookmarks, which may require no googling at all.

You keep redressing “answering a social media query” as “Googling in the poster' behalf” when it's nothing like that.

1/2

I'll say even more: replying to somebody's social media query with a Googled answer is not only a waste of your time, but even disrespectful to the poster. If you don't know the answer to the query, you can just not answer.

2/2

How do people actually know something? They could always lie and make stuff up. And that happens over and over again on social media – which is why it’s rife with misinformation.

For this reason, I don’t believe in answering anything factual unless it’s validated and verified. Which requires a link. And it is very unlikely that link comes from my bookmarks bar. Which means if I were to answer, I’d probably use a search engine.

So the answer to this problem is to learn how to do research and answer questions yourself.

@oblomov Is that how you feel about spam as well? Just ignore it when it arrives in your inbox? To others, spam seems trivial – but it’s not.

You also haven’t addressed that facts should be verified and validated by links. In fact, you skipped over this need entirely. And this is not a small thing.

how the fsck do you get to an analogy between social media queries and spam? is any content you don't like in social media spam?

I haven't addressed it because it's irrelevant to the discussion. But if you really want to insist on that point, then you should be aware that just providing a link to support a statement does absolutely nothing to support the truth or validity of that statement, it just shifts the authority.

Something you don’t seem to get is that I don’t take requests for work lightly. Tech support is actual work I’ve been paid to do. 90% of it was basically running a help desk—handing out links because most people are too lazy to search for themselves, so they dump the job on others, even if it takes a whole day to get a response.

Now, you might ask, “Why just send links instead of answering the question?” Because the article is already written. It only takes seconds to share that link, but re-explaining everything would take way longer. Even if I’m the expert, I use Google to find the right link to validate and verify instead of writing paragraphs.

Everyone can solve these problems through search. It literally takes seconds. Whether you like Google or not, Google is usually more accurate and efficient than social media threads.

So no, I’m not calling all content I don’t like “spam.” But questions that could be answered instantly by a quick search, yet are offloaded to others, are a drain on time and effort—that’s the real issue.

no, I'm asking what this has to do with social media queries in any way.

The only case in which a social media query could be equiparable to spam is if it was addressed to you specifically, which was never mentioned as being the case in this thread. In fact, when I expressely excluded this particular case from my discussion, you just skimmed over it, so it's assumed that this is NOT the case.

1/n

And if this is not the case, then random people making queries about anything on social media not only is in no way equivalent to spam, but it's not something you (or anyone) would normally come across unless they either follow someone who makes a lot of said queries or boosts said queries, or follow one of the hashtags typically associated with said queries. IOW, one would have to intentionally go look for them, which is the completely opposite of spam

2/n

since there's a trivial solution to not seeing them in one's timeline again, by unfollowing said poster/booster or by filtering out the relevant hashtags.

So it's not spam that gets pushed to your inbox against your will, it's not something you're under any obligation to answer to in any shape and form, and you dictating what others should or should not post about or how makes you appear as a pretentious gatekeeper of how others should use social media.

3/n

IF, on the other hand, what you're talking about is people asking you directly unwanted questions about anything, then the issue isn't that it's a social media query for something that could be‌ Googled, but that people are violating netiquette by trying to engage you directly. And the problem there isn't the social media query, but the unrequested direct engagement.

4/4

@oblomov Let me be crystal clear—I’m talking about my mentions. Specifically, when people deliberately tag or mention me with questions that could be answered with a quick Google search.

When someone does that, they’re asking me to do their work for them. That’s not just annoying—it’s a waste of my time.

I’m fully within my rights to call that out as bad behavior.

@oblomov Sorry I wasn’t clearer.

That said, sending someone an lmgtfy unprompted on their feed is total reply guy energy.

It’s a personal policy of mine to not reply to someone’s post with a correction unless it’s so egregious, it would be wrong to not speak up. I’m talking vaccine denials.

Generally asking about the best IKEA furniture for a living room on your feed? Totally fine.