My answer keeps growing so the "too long; didn't read" answer currently reads:
- The question was okay (but duplicate).
- Answering an okay, not obviously duplicate, question is encouraged.
- Don't fight/Meta in comments.
- AU ♥ A
I get a bit fed up of Team "Ermagerd just Google it" at times.
While there are legitimate cases where I feel like head-butting a pony because they would get a result faster from Google (ie "What is Ubuntu"), many technical questions that are ohsoobvious to us, just aren't to normal people.
If you ask Google "what does bash mean", you see:
If you ask our search the same thing, you get a load of complex technical questions about things in Bash. And while in both cases you can eventually dig up a meaning, the first glance result is a load of overwhelmingly complicated or conflicting data.
Just to head off the...
But results 7 and 12 both mention UNIX and GNU, that's clearly relevant!! They're idiots for not having seen it! Why are we encouraging idiots onto the site?!1
If you don't know what Bash is, you probably don't understand that other terms like Unix are related to Ubuntu either. People can be a little unforgiving of beginners because they forget what it was like for them when they knew nothing.
That is all to say: I have complete sympathy with somebody asking the question.
You were also attacked in this process by somebody essentially claiming that answering stupid questions breeds more stupid. Or that as a more experienced user, you should implicitly know there's already an answer here for that question.
Well, again, neither our search results or Google's are particularly forthcoming for "what does bash mean" so I think that's a completely unreasonable argument. There are exceptions to this:
- You have already answered an exact duplicate "recently". You should probably remember it and suggest it as a close target.
- It's obviously and irreparably off-topic. And even then, there are cases where I've answered a question about a technically off-topic release or distribution where the answer would also apply to Ubuntu. Changing the question retroactively is okay as long as it still applies to the OP (explain that in your edit though).
- Googling the question in simple English returns a prominent answer on the site.
You hadn't answered this before, it's clearly relevant, and even when you add "ask ubuntu" to the Google search, the results are muddy as hell.
So I have complete sympathy with you too.
Lastly, that people are blaming people answering for the quality of questions is ludicrous. If you don't like a question, deal with it in the way the site is supposed to deal with these questions: Improve it, ask the OP to improve it, close it, delete it, vote on it. Or some combination therein.
If you have a specific issue, bring it to Meta. Comment threads very quickly that dissolve into people trying to pull rank to make a point. That was you too, Zach. It's not pretty.
Help vampires are real but asking a bum question or two (which I maintain, this isn't), really doesn't form part of their definition. They are people who repeatedly ask bad questions. Dealing with these questions —as above— deals with these users.
Don't attack people for answering...
Ask Ubuntu ♥ Answers.
