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My neighbor told me asking 'anything' means you can ask literally anything
We were talking about this forum and he said the whole point is there are no dumb questions, even about basic stuff. It hit different because I always thought you should only ask 'smart' questions here. Has anyone else had a rule about this place that they realized was just in their head?
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abby_murphy5mo ago
Yeah, your neighbor is mostly right, but I'd tweak it a bit. The idea is you can ask anything, but you should still try to ask it well. Like, "how does a car engine work?" is a great basic question. "Tell me about cars" is too vague and hard to answer. So it's not about being smart, it's about putting in a tiny bit of effort so people can actually help you. I used to worry about looking dumb, but now I just try to be clear about what I don't know.
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murray.pat5mo ago
It's like that with everything now, right? People just want you to google the whole manual for them instead of asking a real question.
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abbyf794mo ago
Wait wait wait, you're telling me someone actually said "tell me about cars" is too vague? Dude that's literally the definition of a broad question tho. I mean yeah it's not like you can just drop a bomb like that and expect a textbook back, but that's kind of the whole point of a forum about asking anything, right? Like if I can't ask about something huge and messy then what's even the limit? It feels like we're gatekeeping what counts as a "good" question now and that just defeats the purpose.
Honestly I've never seen it that way before. I always thought the dumb questions were the ones you could literally answer with a single google search, not the ones that are just really big and open ended. Like if someone asks "how do cars work" I get why that's a lot but at least theyre trying to connect the dots themselves instead of just asking for step by step instructions on how to change a tire. The vague stuff is where the real learning happens even if it takes a few follow up questions to get there.
I guess I'm just shocked that there's a whole unwritten rule about effort when the whole selling point here was supposed to be "no such thing as a dumb question." Feels like we're moving the goalposts and now you gotta be a perfect little question writer just to not get ignored. That kinda bums me out but maybe I'm just old school.
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