this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2024
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It is clear that the signal to noise ratio of the WWW is getting worse. It's much harder to find good content when using a good old search engine. And if it's good it is usually hosted on Reddit or Stackexchange.

So remember, even if it's easy too Google something (well, it isn't nowadays), we want to create a fediverse of good content that helps people (I hope). So, it's always better to write a real answer if you have the time and energy. Please help boost the SNR and reverse the AI fueled information degradation loop.

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[–] Mikina 22 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I've never had issues with looking anything up. By downranking Reddit and using a search engine with a good indexer that downranks bullshit and generated websites, which mine is really good at, I haven't noticed much change from how it was before.

But I agree with the second part. That's something that never occured to me, and it makes sense. I was usually trying to answer questions I knew, and never had the urge to reply "just google it", so it doesn't change much for me, but it's a really good point I never realized.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago

Remember that most people don't even know there is something called "rankings" or "indexer" in this context.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In the before times we had libraries of books that'd teach a person anything they wanted to learn. If a person had a question and the book didn't answer there was someone there who didn't know the answer but damn well knew how to find it. We never had to sort through piles of garbage content produced to waste our time for profit.

Even the early Internet was this way. Its slow degradation became a nose dive with broad adoption of Facebook and AI. I had to starting writing a line of code to search. And, that doesn't even work anymore.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago

I used to be pretty good at googling stuff, but the last 1 or 2 years it just won't work anymore. For instance, I had to charge a battery yesterday, and the power led started blinking when I put the battery in. I didn't know if this meant either charging or faulty battery, so I googled it. Got pages of ads for this particular charger, but no answer. So google is just a big marketplace these days, and nothing more.

Just so you know, a dremel battery is charging when the power led blinks.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Do you mind elaborating on your search setup? I'd like to be able to avoid a ton of bullshit especially while working.

[–] Mikina 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I just use Kagi, which seems to be pretty good at filtering bullshit by default, and have mabually downranked reddit and twitter, ot any other site I found and don't like. But it's been a long time since I used other search, so I can't compare it much since I'm used to it. Never really had any problems with not finding what I need.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I'll be sure to check it out, thanks!