I answered a question today while knowing little about the subject, and all I did was Google. True, some googlers are better than others, and perhaps I deserved the 1 upvote I got for such. However, if the OP needed more in depth detail in regards to his question, perhaps commented to my answer, I wouldn't have that practical experience to elaborate.
So, should someone post an answer without having sufficient practical knowledge on the subject?
The aim of the site is to be a replacement for search engines, so good answers are where you find them: there's nothing wrong with an answer that's based on a bit of googling, as long as it does answer the question and it isn't a straight steal of someone else's work (we've seen answers that appear to be someone just cutting and pasting vague results of a search, which isn't so good obviously).
I think this happens more than it might appear. Sometimes I see something here I feel I "ought" to know or want to find out about because it's close to one of my areas of expertise. If I then dig into it to find the answer for my own curiosity then at that point, putting up an answer is just sharing the results of research. That's a good thing.
If someone needs something more in-depth then that's leaving room for another answer that will hopefully get votes too.
If I then dig into it to find the answer for my own curiosity - Yup, I do that occasionally. I see a question that is interesting, or brings up something I hadn't known before and I research it. If I am able to find something that would be useful/relevant for question, then I post it in an answer, or sometimes just a comment if what I found was just some references.
Commented
Feb 14, 2014 at 21:58
If it answers the question, why not?
Ideally, sure, you'd only answer questions you had practical experience on. Then again, ideally, we wouldn't get questions from people who hadn't even Googled their problem first.
A Google-fu answer is perfectly acceptable if it is correct (and, coming from SO, if it also contains the relevant information instead of just a link). If the poster was able to find it on Google (or if they would have hit Google first) then they would not have asked the question in the first place. Sometimes people don't even know what to search for and by pointing them to a Google result you give them relevant keywords and a starting point that they didn't have before. In any case, they asked because they did not know the answer and either did not know how to find it or came to an SX site first -- a Google-powered answer helps them (and potentially others) and that is the real goal.
As for answering a question when you have no real knowledge of it; I fully support this as long as you can come up with a correct answer. I do this all the time. When I have free time, I go to SO and start researching and providing answers to questions that I did not know the answer to. For me, this is how I learn best. Over the years I've learned an incredible amount by simply finding the answers to unanswered posts on various forums (on some I titled myself "Google Relay Server") - I feel it keeps me from getting stuck in ruts sticking to what I know. At the same time, it has the added feel-good bonus of contributing a little bit of real knowledge to the internet, and for every other person in a bind who finds it as an answer to their problem, it is worth it. I know I always appreciate finding correct answers to my questions.
In my opinion, the true goal of sites like this isn't to show off or to grab "reputation points"; it is to contribute to the internet as a source of information and collection of human knowledge so that others can continue from where we left off and find information without having to go through the pain of re-deriving it for themselves, and I fully support anything that contributes to that, including Google-powered answers.
For me it depends on the question. Sometimes it would be fine to do that. If at all possible, I would take the Google answer that I found and test it on my own machine(s), to be absolutely certain that it worked. I don't want to post an answer unless I know that it is actually an answer, right?
