Hot take? I hope not.

Normalize asking people even simple things to have a social interaction instead of expecting everyone to use search engines for everything all the time.

Let’s go full circle and go from using LMGTFY to be happy to answer things instead.

@raccoon I’ve long looked at LMGTFY or “google it” as an asshole move, especially when the person saying it is perfectly capable of answering.

@maddy @raccoon it can be annoying sometimes when someone excessively asks questions that can be trivially answered just by searching though

@noisytoot @raccoon That may be so, but better in that case to not respond than to be a jerk about it.

@raccoon i have always taken pride to be one who acts the other way around, to calmly and patiently write explanations that i hoped would be well understandable and tried to guide someone on his journey, or add deep niche knowledge

I still try this here

But i also recognice all the time, it does rarely lead to social feedback and building connections. Much more i read diffuse complaints about "reply guys" and not even a hint if I was targeted because i might have made something wrong

@maddy @noisytoot @raccoon I ask people to look things up when they're denanding labour from people when they should do it themselves.
Men asking how x is sexist, or examples of misogyny.
Fellow white people asking people to explain how things are racist, etc.

These are things that need reading to understand. They need willingness to engage. Not just asking strangers online to teach you for free (esp when the asker didn't seem to have read understood the post they're asking under) .

When I don't think the question is in good faith, or when answering would take so much out of people it's not worth it.

So yes, for trivial Qs, it's great.