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When I hear stuff like this I always imagine going to a restaurant and asking the waitress for a menu and them replying “lol just google it”. It’s not that I c

When I hear stuff like this I always imagine going to a restaurant and asking the waitress for a menu and them replying “lol just google it”. It’s not that I can’t or don’t know how, it’s rather that the expectation should be that a website should… link you to the information it believes to be relevant background. It’s why it’s called a “web”, linking is a core concept.

brazukadev 22d ago
> When I hear stuff like this I always imagine going to a restaurant and asking the waitress for a menu and them replying “lol just google it”. in this case there was a menu in the next empty table and you saw it but in place of getting it you want the waitress to get it for you. Which is a normal behavior but you could save your time by just getting the menu yourself.
- AshleyGrant 22d ago
  No. It isn't. With acronyms, there's often plenty of potential things it can stand for, and if the person doesn't know enough to know which one is the correct acronym, Googling it isn't going to help them. As OP said, simply providing a link to a Wikipedia article, or a glossary, helps widen the audience beyond "IFYKYK." The NWS knows this and automatically links to their glossary for both acronyms as well as jargon in their discussions. <-- See what I did there? What does NWS mean in this context? If only I had provided a link that would help you know. I very easily could have. I just didn't.
  - serf 22d ago
    >As OP said, simply providing a link to a Wikipedia article, or a glossary, helps widen the audience beyond "IFYKYK." it also serves as a minimum barrier to entry for the masses, which isn't always a bad thing. if you're reading this stuff, and you can't figure out what kind of RAG that the search engine mentioned is being talked about through context clues, or you aren't clever enough to feed context into the search like 'hackers , computers, rag' as a query -- there is a very high probability that the person will have absolutely nothing constructive to add to the conversation that is about the topics they haven't even yet conceptualized or are aware of. in that case that slight barrier to entry for the conversation will serve as a tool to produce less work for the moderators and derail less threads into uselessness. (much like this stupid divergence.)
    - AshleyGrant 22d ago
      > it also serves as a minimum barrier to entry for the masses, which isn't always a bad thing. No. Lowering the barrier of entry to those who are trying, in earnest, to learn about a new topic, to broaden their base of knowledge is NEVER a bad thing. None of us were born with the knowledge to read this (or similar) article. Trying to kick the ladder down after you have climbed it is terrible behavior and absolutely must be discouraged and stopped at all costs. > much like this stupid divergence The only thing stupid in this conversation is the insistence that folks who might know less than the author of the linked article or the poster do not deserve to have access to the information.
    - wldcordeiro 21d ago
      blah blah blah justifications for gatekeeping.
- ninkendo 21d ago
  Given the title of the article is “RAG is simpler than you think”, and how I expected it to literally be an article explaining what RAG is and how it works, it’s more like going to the menu holder at the front of the restaurant, finding out it doesn’t have any menus in it, and then the waitress saying “we don’t have menus, dummy, just google it.”
serf 22d ago
given the audience and the venue I think it's more like going to a restaurant as a customer and then asking the waiter to explain what a sandwich is.
- ninkendo 21d ago
  I mean the article is entitled “RAG is simpler than you think”. I clicked the link thinking “I don’t know what RAG is, so ok I’m willing to learn something”, and the article… completely fails to explain it. Given that the stated purpose of the article is to literally explain how simple something is, not explaining that thing seems a bit misleading, no? I’m gonna get rich when I make a website explaining all the technical concepts in AI. Every article will just say “lol google it”, it’s gonna be great.

brazukadev 22d ago

> When I hear stuff like this I always imagine going to a restaurant and asking the waitress for a menu and them replying “lol just google it”. in this case there was a menu in the next empty table and you saw it but in place of getting it you want the waitress to get it for you. Which is a normal behavior but you could save your time by just getting the menu yourself.

AshleyGrant 22d ago
No. It isn't. With acronyms, there's often plenty of potential things it can stand for, and if the person doesn't know enough to know which one is the correct acronym, Googling it isn't going to help them. As OP said, simply providing a link to a Wikipedia article, or a glossary, helps widen the audience beyond "IFYKYK." The NWS knows this and automatically links to their glossary for both acronyms as well as jargon in their discussions. <-- See what I did there? What does NWS mean in this context? If only I had provided a link that would help you know. I very easily could have. I just didn't.
- serf 22d ago
  >As OP said, simply providing a link to a Wikipedia article, or a glossary, helps widen the audience beyond "IFYKYK." it also serves as a minimum barrier to entry for the masses, which isn't always a bad thing. if you're reading this stuff, and you can't figure out what kind of RAG that the search engine mentioned is being talked about through context clues, or you aren't clever enough to feed context into the search like 'hackers , computers, rag' as a query -- there is a very high probability that the person will have absolutely nothing constructive to add to the conversation that is about the topics they haven't even yet conceptualized or are aware of. in that case that slight barrier to entry for the conversation will serve as a tool to produce less work for the moderators and derail less threads into uselessness. (much like this stupid divergence.)
  - AshleyGrant 22d ago
    > it also serves as a minimum barrier to entry for the masses, which isn't always a bad thing. No. Lowering the barrier of entry to those who are trying, in earnest, to learn about a new topic, to broaden their base of knowledge is NEVER a bad thing. None of us were born with the knowledge to read this (or similar) article. Trying to kick the ladder down after you have climbed it is terrible behavior and absolutely must be discouraged and stopped at all costs. > much like this stupid divergence The only thing stupid in this conversation is the insistence that folks who might know less than the author of the linked article or the poster do not deserve to have access to the information.
  - wldcordeiro 21d ago
    blah blah blah justifications for gatekeeping.
ninkendo 21d ago
Given the title of the article is “RAG is simpler than you think”, and how I expected it to literally be an article explaining what RAG is and how it works, it’s more like going to the menu holder at the front of the restaurant, finding out it doesn’t have any menus in it, and then the waitress saying “we don’t have menus, dummy, just google it.”

serf 22d ago

given the audience and the venue I think it's more like going to a restaurant as a customer and then asking the waiter to explain what a sandwich is.

ninkendo 21d ago
I mean the article is entitled “RAG is simpler than you think”. I clicked the link thinking “I don’t know what RAG is, so ok I’m willing to learn something”, and the article… completely fails to explain it. Given that the stated purpose of the article is to literally explain how simple something is, not explaining that thing seems a bit misleading, no? I’m gonna get rich when I make a website explaining all the technical concepts in AI. Every article will just say “lol google it”, it’s gonna be great.