As someone who utilizes search engines a lot to find answers, I sometimes get irritated with people who ask questions without having done any research themselves. Even people in my own office.
I recently read here on Meta that links to lmgtfy are taboo, and I can certainly understand why, even if it's crossed my mind to post like that.
But how close to the line am I getting when I post an answer like this? Is this too close to answering, "lmgtfy", or is the trick on how you word it?
Since Google search-results are not a permanent resource, and strange as it may sound the same keyword set may return different answers in 5 years, we frown on answers that boil down to "use different keywords in google, it'll be staring you in the face." We also frown on answers of the "just follow this link, it's all spelled out there," sort since link-rot is a fact of the internet; we've already had some perfectly good accepted answers die this way.
In general, we really like answers to include how to answer the question, not just how to find the answer to the question. How to find answers to questions is a a very top-priority skill for sysadmins, and it rankles when people obviously haven't done that yet. As a group, we don't like spoon-feeding answers ("give me a complete checklist to follow for upgrading SVN from 1.3 to 1.5, in small words"), so the urge to snark is strong when we come across it.
Answers need to have content, not pointers to content.
That is essentially the same thing as LMGTFY, and adds nothing besides a link to google. Generally we prefer answers that answer the question, and if you are linking outside the site add some context.
Basically, that's not an answer to his question at all.
IMO opinion that question wasn't great. I cast a down-vote and a close vote on that one.
Given that Google shows over 4000 results for site:serverfault.com iis redirect https I would be very surprised if there isn't a duplicate or near duplicate already on serverfault that covered the redirection. I suspect there are more over on webmasters, that would lead him in the right direction.
I do agree with Zypher, and sysadmin1138. If you are going to answer the question, you really should make it a good answer, If you link to a howto/reference at least provide a summary/synopsis.
I'm a big believer in teaching someone how to fish rather than simply giving them a fish. I'd say my ideal answer is one that walks someone through solving their problem and shows them the answer rather than simply giving them the answer.
So no, any answer that adds up to "just use google" doesn't cut it. Answers that actually give the asker their answer right there in your reply while showing how you used google to validate the answer or whatever are perfectly valid.
If a question is too bad to be "worth" an answer in some way then a comment telling them to improve the question might be worthwhile, or if its just too simplistic then post it in the 'vote to close' chat room and people will consider if its just worth closing it. But leaving a bad answer in those cases just makes a bad thing worse.
