Slashdot Mirror
Where to Ask if not Ask Slashdot?
Rick the Red asks: "It seems that 3/4 of the Ask Slashdot articles are met with "Ask Google" answers. So, where do you go for answers (besides Google)? Advice (besides Dear Abby)? Opinions (besides ePinions)? If you want to know how to network one of those 4-in-1 printers, how do you find someone who's tried it? If you need help with some discontinued merchandise, who do you ask? If your pet project hits a snag, what do you do? Come on, all you "Ask Google" critics, fess up -- where do you think people should turn instead of Ask Slashdot?"
This should be in the 'Meta Ask Slashdot' catagory ;)
I personally ask stuff like that on mailing lists, usenet, and IRC (not in that order!). You can also try hooking up with a geeks / sysadmin group in your local area (I'm sure there's one most everywhere), and ask friends / associates there.
(no other search engines give you real answers, but i guess you could Ask Jeeves
I'd suggest Ars technica...it's a great place to ask questions and the search gives you access to a bunch of older questions.
Google is another good one of course.
IP Therefore I am.
The forums at Tom's Hardware or anandtech are some of the best places to get answers to tech questions. Especially if its a question about which hardware to buy.
Another good way to go is to find a slashdot user who will probably have your answer, and check their journal/e-mail.
And of course usenet is great. And you can use google for that too!
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
It probably counts as part of google, but I definitely consult deja.com.
It's getting worse! I don't usually join the folks bitching about Ask /. questions, but this is getting old.
/. is the forum for how to network your 4-in-fucking-1 printer, that's what 4-in-1 printer newsgroups and customer support are for.
The post said exactly what you do, ASK GOOGLE. As more people are getting into this stuff, fewer are learning the way most of us did years and years back -- We Looked It Up.
I don't think
Jesus. Stop posting these obvious questions! Just type them into Google:
where do I ask my questions other than slashdot
That results in this link:
ask.slashdot.org
Sheesh.
www.perlmonks.org
I should have picked out the nickname Demosthenes!Tecumseh.
This is one of those articles where /. eats itself.
/ 22 35235&mode=thread&tid=96
There will no longer be "Ask Slashdot?" articles of any value (the last 10 or so have been of no value, other than the pure 'there-are-some-dumb-shits-around' laugh out loud factor), since the only possible *valid* response to Ask Slashdot is:
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/17
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Come on, do some research. Ask Slashdot is by far the quickest way to get a legion of smart people with nothing to do but read slashdot to find your answers. Got a problem you don't want to waste an hour or two looking for the answer. Just ask slashdot.
Ask slashdot is just a smarter search engine.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
adequacy dot org
Google is probably an overlooked resource too. Most of the time I can find answers to my Linux questions by searching for "linux howto topicname" (without the quotes). And I have bookmark folders full of sites devoted to one or two specific topics (networking, MP3's, beginner-level Linux, CD-RW's, etc).
Errr, Google?
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Ask Google.
Personally i'd not ask slashdot about anything until i've tried every other place that crosses my mind. And after hitting my head on the wall for two weeks straight.
/. topics have been, well, dodgy.
Lately (as everyone probably agrees) ask
# everything zen? don't think so.
South Location
738 Michigan Ave.
Holland, MI
(616) 392-4556
I also like http://www.alltheweb.com. It honors quotes. So "slashdot whiners" (with the quotes) will only find pages where the two words are adjacent and in that order. Can be very handy.
My other Slashdot ID is much lower.
Usenet has for the last twenty or so years been a place to ask questions and get advice. Google Groups has a wonderful search feature where you can query past Usenet discussions, which includes almost all of the questions that others have already asked. Let's face it, it's very likely that someone else has already asked your question.
I use this for all sorts of topics (computers, home remodeling, appliance repair, cars, etc.). I almost always find some useful information.
And if all else fails, I can submit my question to an appropriate newsgroup (again using Google Groups).
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Yeah yeah go ahead mod me down before you read the full reply, for having an unpopular opinion...
but here it is anyway....
The reason for asking a question at ask slashdot is to get the help of people how have done it before. This is a plain stright forward simple truth. Yes in many cases you can go "ask google" however...you might get a page or two with in formation on the howto's...you will not get the life expirence information on how everyone did do it(as opposed to the one or two ways that google might give you)...the information that ask slashdot response will give you are the gotcha's the alternative approches, and so forth...
Its a community folks, personally I would rather ask the people who have done it and have the expirence that I can ask questions of during my implimentation...than trust it to some googled web page that may or my not even be currently maintained. Asking slashdot can also cut through alot of the bullshit that you might otherwise run into because the slashdoters who have bene there before will more often than not point you to the resources that did work for them...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
To try a somewhat different tack -- here are two things questioners can do to avoid stirring up us critics:
1) Mention where you've already looked (Google, Usenet, whatever), what you've found and what additional information you want. Half the time, the karma whores who do a quick search haven't found a useful answer. Telling what you've already done boosts your credibility and makes it easier for readers to complement other sources.
2) Maybe this is just me and a few others but -- enough with the "What is the best ____ for geeks?" questions! If you're trying to purchase an identity, why not go to Abercrombie and Fitch and buy a good one?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I rely heavily on IRC. particularly irc.openprojects.net...
sometimes my questions are OT, but the people in #debian are very nice. #wireless helps me with my wireless problems. #gnu helps me with my political questions. etc.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
Why http://qb45.com/forums of course!
http://qb45.com/forum
You can find a plethora of valuable information on the WWW, including archived mailing lists and other discussion forums (Yes, they do exist outside of /.!). Were a person crafty enough, they might even dig a little deeper into these forums and perhaps, upon finding a relatively fresh topic, post some of their own input and experience to the thread in order that they may help the NEXT person to come along asking the same question.
If same person has a webpage, perhaps they could post a detailed explanation of their experiences, as have so many other people done in the past, in order that "Ask Google!" will only become more valid as time goes on, rather than less so.
You mean to tell me that you could submit an Ask Slashdot article, have it posted to the front page, and have people responding with valid tips/tricks in time for you to implement a solution to your problem, and still have time to iron out the kinks before the article scrolls off the page and everybody loses interest?What are you doing, setting up a Samba server for a LAN? Installing a 4-in-1 printer device for a network? It's these very mundane tasks that "Ask Google" excells at, because so many others have come before and done the exact same thing (not to mention support from the copman[y/ies] in whatever form is available).
Slashdot is supposed to be (and if not, pardon my ignorance, I'm just going by the title of the page here) a NEWS site - is it not? Why is it news to me to find out where to get/how to make a portable hub (something that Google, BTW, excelled at determining the answer to)? What about finding graphics editing software? Don't we have Freshmeat for finding *NIX software? What about balancing Career and College? Haven't people been doing that for DECADES now? Don't most schols have guidance counsellors for that? What about career counselling services? Hell, one's own employer and/or co-workers? Safely cleaning LCD displays? My laptop came with instructions that were quite clear on this procedure, as have most devices I've ever purchased with LCD / TFT displays. Is Ask Slashdot really quicker than flipping to the Index in a manual? Online marketing for an indie band? People have been doing this for years - ask other bands, not nerds. If you're having trouble finding bands, look in the (sorry to alarm you) "Yellow Pages". You know, sources of information pointing to local businesses (read: people who make their living in each of these technical areas). Musty Music is a great source for people in the Durham / GTA and surrounding area. ("Not By Choice" rehearsed there, and was played first on the online radio station in which they are a partner!).
Whoa.. This one just took the cake - "Learning x86 for Non-x86 Assembler Programmers?"?!? I'm fairly certain that I could fill my shiny new 80GB hard drive with information in this area from, you guessed it, search engines!
Ask Slashdot was interesting a few years ago, but now it's just become a source of answers for people too lazy to do any legwork of their own. I agree with a previous post - one to two weeks of legwork required before an A.S. article makes it to the site. Perhaps documented proof of research should be a requirement to have an article posted to the front page.
</RANT>
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
YES! Also, sometimes a person who reads slashdot might know more then the howto or whatever says. Google is good, but sometimes the answer isn't always in Google, be it the simple how do I hook up my Linksys router to 3 computers and a PDA and configure it properly and securly or the somewhat harder how do I install Linux and boot off of X filesystem(one not in the installer, but one the kernel will run). I mean yeah I know how to do it but some don't and sometimes the answers aren't all there. My point: Stop being so damn LEET by say ASK GOOGLE! :) Help someone for a change and be nice!
Gorkman
Now there's a good question topic. Just where is the Slashdot Legion of Smart People secret fortress?
THE LEGION OF SMART PEOPLE
Crypto Man - able to crack DES at a single bound.
H4x0r Man - able to crack any system in a flash.
Troll Man - infuriates the entire community with a single post.
Taco Man - Nah, by no stretch could Taco Man be in the Legion.
Effective troubleshooting is largely a process of elimination, and as such it works best if you are extremely orderly about it. For example, let's say a lamp "just stopped working," "for no reason." Well, first eliminate the bulb as the possible culprit: put in a new one, or test the old one in a lamp that's known to work. At the end, you should be able to say with certainty that the bulb works fine.
So now look at the lamp. Is the bulb socket corroded? Is the bulb making contact where it needs to? Is the lamp actually plugged in? Is the switch working? Again, at the end of the process, you should be able to say with certainty that the lmap is not the problem.
The you'd look at the wiring and whatever else might be involved. 99.9% of the time, you will find the problem well before you run out of places to look. It's exactly the same with computers. NIC isn't working? First swap in a NIC that's known to work. Then test cables that are known to work. Then you would probably do the same from the other end of the connection. Monitor isn't working? Try it on a different computer, or try a different monitor on your computer. Try a different video card. Different cable. And so on.
The other useful part here is that narrowing your questions like that greatly improves your chances of success with a search engine. Putting "my NIC doesn't work" into Google isn't going to help; but putting "my NIC transmits, but won't receive" probably is. Putting "permission denied" into Google is going to get you thousands of pages back, but putting "linux ifconfig permission denied" is probably going to put your answer at the very top. And so on. And, if you still are stumped and have to ask someone for help, at least you can provide a detailed explanation of what you have tried, which improves your odds of getting a qualified (and correct) answer back.
Because of this, I very seldom have to ask any questions. When I do, I usually ask either knowledgeable people I already know, or I post my question on USENET. This is primarily a question of competence, unfortunately; most web boards, IRC groups, and so on are full primarily of ignorant people who think they are really smart, and misleading or inaccurate replies can waste hours of my time if I don't correctly identify them as such. (Plus, they cause the knowledgeable people to get lost in the noise.)
Also, this was really long.
My take on it is this the real geeks in here have been put upon and forced to do the dirty work of others for years with little to no recognition of our true talents. Then we come to our community as others have put it to relax and find reasons to be excited again. Then when we get here some lamer (for lack of a better word) has come up with the question of what geek options are our there for x. It's like someone asking me to do his or her dirty work in my time of leisure. This is especially irritating when I search up the exact question on google and it is in the top ten results with discussion groups tied directly to it already.
Now I'm all for being an open community but people really need to think before they ask what nerds might consider stupid questions. Especially when they don't check the resources that are out there before posting to ask slashdot. It is even worse when someone is looking for complicated answers to problems were it is obvious they don't even understand their own question.
The next one is the obvious company posting to ask slashdot for competitive analysis information. Their are people out there who study sociology for a reason. So they can perform the work of gathering information for group studies. Not so you can post a question asking us to tell you who all your competitors are and how we feel they rank to your product.
Now as for what resources obviously they are specific to the application so there is no single solution to this question. The rule of thumb is to start off small. Local user groups, specific interest groups, then as you encounter more and more "I don't knows", it might be an appropriate question for a larger community like slashdot.
The point being here is that if the only resource you know is ask slashdot then you really need to spend a bit more time with your favorite search engine and find others before you even think about posting to ask slashdot.
If this ever becomes the minority view then I will have to see if I can find myself a new news site. And slashdot can their tagline to "The Newbies Site for News and Information From Around the Web" instead of "News For Nerds Stuff That Matters".
I follow about 30 Usenet groups daily, and see some great help (with a client capable of doing some filtering, the signal to noise ratio is better than almost anywhere else on the net).
As a result, anytime I have a question, the first place I will hit is Google Groups.
With the right search terms and narrowing it down to the correct groups, the help can be fantastic. Chances are that if you are having a problem or question, someone else has had the same problem.
When I seach for Mac problem, for example, hitting comp.sys.mac.* with a search will give me quality results about 99 out of 100 times.
The other nice thing is that there are questions and answers for almost any subject you can imagine, from networking a four-in-one device to turning left on red.
[Yes, so maybe it is part of Google. But I am guessing that a lot of people submitting "Ask Slashdot" questions are not hitting that before they submit.]
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Its good to know someone got my point the first guy got totally offended for no reason at all....
its not that the web pages are not helpful, its just that sometimes they are not enough....:> Ask Slashdot fills that void....
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
... I was taught that whenever I get lost, I should ask a policeman for help.
Yes in many cases you can go "ask google" however...you might get a page or two with in formation on the howto's...you will not get the life expirence information on how everyone did do it
Yes, you will. Ever heard of Google Groups?
Another for everyone b*tching that ask /. for the recent questions. What questions are suitable for ask /. then, if not the ones that are answered ask google?
You just have to learn how to use a search engine. Most "Ask Slashdot" questions are so simple that just typing in 1-2 keywords gets what you need - if your query is more complicated, chances are Ask Google still works, you just need a more complicated query to extract the right data.
And for those that have said Google isn't good enough because you want personal opinion and not a howto.... you're likely to find what you're looking for on Google if you would just look. Check out that guy's website with his grueling story of how he did it, it took him a week and a lot of duct tape. Read the damn howto as well, I'm sure it's based on someone's personal experience.
Come to Ask Slashdot when you question actually borders on technical opinion instead. But even then, don't ask people to do you damn job for you. So many of the non "Ask Google" questions are obviously just that - usually what tips these off is that they're too specific to a special situation the asker is dealing with. Ask the broad general question instead.
11*43+456^2
Last I looked, Usenet had mainly devolved into a vast collection of spamers, people utterly dedicated to a topic, and frothing nutters. That's a shame; circa 1991 it was actually pretty swell.
The thing I like about Ask Slashdot is that it gets a broad audience. The point isn't so much to extract particular information; it's to have a bunch of smart people talk something over. And the moderation mechanism means that I can easily see the relatively useful bits without having to wade through a lotta garbage.
So Google Groups, like Google, is often a good way to get answers to particular questions, but I hardly see it as a replacement for Ask Slashdot.
You do have a sense of humour!
(Moderators, see here instead of modding down. Thank you)
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
No offense, but if google cannot give you a link to a website of someone that's gone through the process and given you an explination: you can't search, or it doesn't exist.
And seriously, how are you going to gain the life experience by just asking other people and not trudging through the little failures yourself?
It is a pretty good site and they have a lot of people on that site that do the question answer stuff. And some really good articles written by the staff on all sorts of things techie.
Duke
FreeBSD: Nothing runs like a daemon with a pitch fork.
Is it so much to ask that people do even a cursory search of the available resources before asking simple questions? If someone wants help recompiling their kernel, should Slashdot readers give them a step by step walkthrough even though there are literally hundreds of pages of information about the topic available from various resources? Nobody would mind people asking Slashdot if the answer to the asker's question wasn't the first response in a Google search, as is frequently the case.
I don't have any problem with someone asking slashdot, even if it's a dumb question; but if the answer to their question is 2 seconds away, why waste everyone's time with it?
rooooar
I think there could be a special category on Slashdot for the easier, but still difficult and well-researched, questions. If someone did not like that category, they could block it in preferences. An alternative is that there could be an askSlashdot.org site. Formula for success: Give people what they want. There are numerous computer-related problems that don't immediately concern me, but that I would like to understand better. There are numerous problems that I have already solved; I can easily give help on those.
I submitted an Ask Slashdot question. I want to know how to do low-cost web host load balancing/failure protection. Asking Google doesn't work in cases like this where there are many methods, and you need to know which is best to pursue. The Ask Slashdot question was rejected.
At present, Slashdot is too focused on games and science and TV programs, I think. Changing preferences doesn't work to block science stories, because some are concerned with computer issues and some aren't.
Some games stories on Slashdot are interesting because they raise issues about advances in computing. Most, however, are just fan stories.
There are other web sites that are good for games. The games stories attract teenagers with a huge amount of time on their hands. Those with too much time available create havoc for the editors and the rest of us by posting junk.
Come on, all you "Ask Google" critics, fess up -- where do you think people should turn instead of Ask Slashdot?"
Am I the only one who took this as an attack on slashdot readership? It's like he's goading us into a fight. Besides, the question is rediculous. What do you think an "Ask Google" critic is going to suggest? Sheesh.
IMHO, the Ask Slashdot forum should be primarily for questions that do not have a straightfoward, logical, correct answer. This kind of information, such as how to network your 4-in-1 printer, can be obtained through numerous outlets (and, no, I'm not going to list those here -- read the other posts). The Ask Slashdot questions ought to be to stimulate discussion on issues that are not clear-cut and have no "right" answer. Slashdot has an intelligent readership that has a very diverse set of opinions. Asking a question here is likely to get you a wide range of interesting answers. That, my friends is one of the things that differentiates slashdot from a google search. Again, just MHO.
GMD
watch this
I find epinions.com quite informative, occasionally.
http://groups.google.com
Seriously, if it's ever come across usenet, you can find it here. It's come in handy for some extremely arcane error messages and the like.
I found Ann Landers to be OK, but the Washington Post (my local paper) replaced her with Dear Abby (Iguess they had to), whom I've found to be vapid and flat. Thank heavens for a local (but also syndicated and more power to her!) alternative. Carolyn Hax writes the Tell Me About It advice column. It's advice with a hip, edgy attitude, along with some kewl comics to go with it.
While there is sometimes a high noise to signal ratio on ask slashdot, it is at least better than most other places...and the self moderation tends to clear the wheat from the chaffe...
Usenet on the other hand is reaching(actually for me several years ago reached) a nearly unusable state...getting useful results from amoung the spam(some groups a used to monitor are now 90% spam) is nearly impossible...
anyway...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I see ask slashdot as a community just like asking my co-workers...
In solving a problem step one is to stand up from my cube(or get on the phone for my one remote co-worker on the other coast), and make a general shout I am trying to do X has anyone ever tryed to do that before? Anyone know of any resources?
Then consult the approprite web sites for the product I am using...then google, then search the usenet groups that might have a connection...then if I think its a good question ask slashdot...
I've had two accepted even and they both got alot of traffic...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
half-empty.org might not have as much technical depth as /. but we do asnwer questions to the best of our ability.
-- Tim
TKrabec Pahh
So, where do you go for answers (besides Google)?
Duh, the library. Google has news as old as what, 1985 for the most part? The library has newspapers, magazines, and books from the 1800s. You cannot come anywhere near the breadth of information contained in a good library by doing a search on google.
I gave up on usenet a few years ago for the exact same reasons, but I've recently returned and been pleasently suprised. If you are simply a little picky about your groups, I think you'll find they really are as good as they were back in the day. For example, the comp.* groups don't seem to suffer any of the problems you list. I've found little else than intelligent answers from reasonable people in those groups.
The alt.* groups certainly have spam issues, though, but I've always found them to be much less "serious" anyway.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Go ask your mother.
If I need an answer, I dont ask slashdot -- I search groups.google.com and if I do not find the answer, I go ask in the relevant newsgroup.
I've subscribed to a whole bunch of mailing lists. The sourceforge mailing lists in particular are great. I'm currently a member of the gdalgorithms list. I learn new things every day.
A *great* place to start (even better than Ask Slashdot, IMHO) is Deja^H^H^H^H, er I mean, Google's Group, which is basically a search on Usenet.
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
USENET has been around for 20+ years, and covers topics far more vast than whats covered at Ask Slashdot. A good USENET search engine: groups.google.com
The whole point is that there are other places to ask beside Google and Ask Slashdot. I think it's actually a very legitimate (and amusing, given the stock replies to ask/.) question!
sulli
RTFJ.
The point of google groups is that a bunch of smart people have already discussed nearly anything you ask (and nearly anything that's been asked here). In many cases, it includes smarter, more informed people than post here. It may not have moderation, but you also don't need to depend on the moderators being unbiased and informed enough to accurately judge things.
if the only resource you know is ask slashdot then you really need to spend a bit more time with your favorite search engine
In practice, How many different queries should a fellow reasonably run, searching through the first 50 results and not finding anything relevant, before giving up and trying the next option?
and find others
What others?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Most "Ask Slashdot" questions are so simple that just typing in 1-2 keywords gets what you need - if your query is more complicated, chances are Ask Google still works, you just need a more complicated query to extract the right data.
How does a fellow learn to formulate such more complicated queries that produce relevant results?
Read the damn howto as well
What if a fellow has trouble understanding the text of the recognized howto?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I search groups.google.com and if I do not find the answer, I go ask in the relevant newsgroup.
Most users, after searching Google Web and Google Groups, ask Slashdot because it's easier to have lurked on Slashdot for two weeks than to have lurked on a particular newsgroup for two weeks. If you don't lurk for two weeks, you may inadvertently ask a question that isn't answered in the group's official FAQ page but is still considered a "dumb question".
Will I retire or break 10K?
In any case, it's divided up into suitable subject-based channels so you don't bother everyone with questions about your love life or Windows-only device -- your question is mainly looked at by people who specialize in answering questions in that particular subject area.
Now, as a company, AskMe.com has more or less left the retail question answering site on autopilot while it markets its software to companies to create knowledge sharing intranets. I do not know how people ordinarily discover AskMe any more -- must be by word-of-mouth (like this). The community of active question answerers is still fairly large despite many months of neglect. There are at least 500 people more active than I am (a few have answered 10,000 questions!) and probably another 1000 or so who are less active.
They have both published blatently false information (ie. THG - 30fps is enough for everyone, movies are only 25fps, etc, etc), and never a retraction. I might skim by their pics of hardware(*cough* those have been faked also, look around for the huge flames), maybe even benchmarks, but that's it. Take it all with a nice 100lb boulder of salt. If you find yourself in a conversation about something that you "learned" at either of these sites, be prepared to be called a dumbass, or thought a fool.
Maybe I sound like a giant troll, but my examples are true, and there are many others.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
Maybe the web has just gotten more comprehensive (well, I know it has). I dunno. I can't even think of a question that couldn't be answered somewhere else.
My Journal - 1,337 fans and countin
The thing is, AS is only really suitable for things with non-trivial answers. Networking a 3-in-1 printer is a simple job with a simple answer, assuming somebody's figured it out. A good AS involves differing opinions coming from varied experiences.
For simple queries (not served by google) something more like a message board is a beter solution. There's no need to clutter up AS with -really- simple questions.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
If you do find an answer to your question
only after a number of searches/asking
around and some effort, put some more effort
into writing it up on a web page (and telling
about it to those you've asked who were interested in the problem but did not quite solve
it).
Considered harmful.
If you think about it. What do the POLLs ask? Reader Opinion Right? That's what Ask Slashdot does... it asks reader opinion. So an editor, moderator, or reader should treat an "Ask Slashdot" question as if it were a poll question with totally open options.
... Where is the best place for a Tech Worker to live? ... Who is more tech savvy Jay Leno or David Letterman? ... Which senator is the most tech friendly? ... Has your Career been best helped by being a specialist (really good at one skill) or being a good generalist (okay at a whole bunch of skills)?
Ask questions here like: Which is cooler Star Wars or Star Trek?
These are actual questions I'd love to see at Ask Slashdot. I'm not going to change my life by the answers that I get... 'cuz it's just a friggin' poll man. But I'd love to read the comments that people would post in answer to some of these. I'd even love the funny trolls that folks would post in some cases.
Ask slashdot should be as much of a free-for-all as the poll section is... and it should have roughly the same types of topics... only with more depth.
[signature]
... or ask stupid questions, does not make me an instant elitist.
Moron.
Stupid questions are simply defined as those questions for which answers are *easily* found without any degree of effort required, yet they are asked anyway out of pure laziness. Most stupid people are lazy, and vice verse.
What defines whether or something is easy is easily is dependent on just exactly how much of a clueless dufus you are. Also, most lazy people find even the easiest things difficult, because they're too lazy.
Insults - particularly in your case - are required as a means of indicating stupidity on the laziness scale, and are intended to goad the recipient into actually getting off their lazy asses, thinking about it, and then doing it themselves.
That satisfy your craving for valuable information, Atzanteol, you big dufus?!!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
-www.experts-exchange.comx p.com
-www.askme.com
-www.e
-www.smallbusiness.com
Experts-exchange is the largest technical expertise community online. Active for several years, you receive question points when you sign up for an account, and on a daily basis. You can then use these question points to ask technical questions about hardware, software and Internet related technologies. Experts compete for "expert points" based on the number of question points you allot to your question. The level of knowledge is high, and you can usually get an answer to your question within days, if not hours.
Askme.com is a more general question and answer community. Ranging from "Dear Abby" advice to legal advice to home improvements. There was a big stink a couple of years ago where one of the "lawyers" turned out to be a teenager who learned everything he knew from TV, so take the credentials of the advisors with a grain of salt. Actually, that goes for all these kinds of sites.
Exp.com is a consultant community. If you have a particular technical requirement, you can post this requirement to exp.com and receive bids from professional consultants. The bids range from no charge to normal consulting rates. One advantage to using this service is that you can get a whole range of quotes all in one place, giving you a good sense of how much you should be charged for a particular service. Experts in the Exp.com community are generally rated once they have completed a few contracts, so you can also get a sense of what other clients think of that particular contractor.
Smallbusiness.com is another question and answer type site, with a bit more emphasis on general article writing. It's fairly comprehensive, and maintained by other small business owners from all over the place (although it does have a US-centric focus). Another good small business resource center is your local entrepreneurship center (For example, mine is www.entrepreneurship.com)
I also like Google (obligatory comment) - but I tend to use it to find resource sites, which I in turn use to find out more information.
For instance, two more specific sites that I use a great deal are javascript.internet.com (tons of how to Javascripts that usually give me a pointer in the right direction) and sqlteam.com, a SQL related advice site.
Someone else suggested the library. That's a good idea! Your local librarian will generally have a list of resources (not just books anymore either) and places to go to find out more!
Ask slashdot is just a smarter search engine.
I think you and I have different definitions of "smarter".
I suppose if I want to implement a SAN using RAID 5 floppy disks, Slashdot is the place to go.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
You simply look up this guy's ass!!1!.
That, or hell...
;)
Though, these days what's the difference?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.