Google should create a giant searchable repository of tech-problem solutions

Every day, millions of people have problems with their computers and/or their internet connections. Almost all of these problems can be solved with the right knowledge, but that knowledge is spread out all over the internet or in the heads of tech-support guys, and can be incredibly difficult to find. Not least because half the time the victim doesn't even know what to look for.

I think google could alleviate a great deal of the world's suffering by amassing a giant collection of tech-support threads marked with "SOLVED" and then enabling interested private individuals or companies to tag and categorise the solutions in such a way that they'd be relatively easy for any remotely tech-savvy user to find.

I'm sure google could devise sophisticated algorithms for speeding up the categorisation process and for sorting solutions in the most appropriate ways (eg. most likely solution first). Users could just pick the type of machine, the OS, the general category of problem, maybe narrow it down a bit, note whether something has changed recently, upload list of installed and/or recently uninstalled software, etc, and then get a list of possible solutions to work through.

Professionals could do accessible writeups of the general categories of solutions. It would be fantastic!









I spent hours yesterday after some sort of silly glitch trying to first get my phone to connect to the wireless network like it used to, and then try to get my laptop to connect to the same network after it got borked for no obvious reason right after the phone was fixed. I think the root cause of both problems was some sort of spooky borking at a distance of my modem/router, but the solutions were VERY different for my phone and my laptop. I happened accross both solutions almost by accident and managed to implement them after a great deal of mucking about, but now that I know them they'll be in my toolbox forever. I can't imagine how someone less net-crazy and stubborn would have gone about solving these problems.

Good old Games does this for their game community forums.
Problem:
There are usually multiple solutions for what people think are the same problem.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

Good old Games does this for their game community forums.
Problem:
There are usually multiple solutions for what people think are the same problem.

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Exactly, but that's a common problem in many different areas, eg. in medicine. A repository like this would help generate differential diagnoses and suggest ways to narrow down the problem. Hopefully people who use it to solve their problems would be able to further improve the chances of future victims finding the best answers.

Doesn't Google already do this? It's, you know, Google search. On the internet.

Look, I've never had to go beyond the first page of a Google query for a problem I'm having. I enter the error code or symptoms along with some specific info (like a product number or whatever) and generally get the solution. I think you just need to phrase your queries better.

Yeah, sounds like regular Google search.

Then we would all benefit as Bing would appropriate those search results.

http://searchengineland.com/google-b...-results-62914

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12343597

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Exactly, but that's a common problem in many different areas, eg. in medicine. A repository like this would help generate differential diagnoses and suggest ways to narrow down the problem. Hopefully people who use it to solve their problems would be able to further improve the chances of future victims finding the best answers.

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I don't see how what you're suggesting is any different than what Google already does. When I had a problem installing, running, or configuring a game, I typed that issue into google. Most of the results were forums threads, and its pretty obvious when they were solved or could point you to a solution.
The problem with technology having multiple solutions appears when people think they have the same problem as others (when they don't). The more confidence (ratings, stars, solution lables) you put behind a certain walkthrough, the less likely the user is to look at different solutions when the path they are on isn't exactly what they need.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Yeah, sounds like regular Google search.

Then we would all benefit as Bing would appropriate those search results.

http://searchengineland.com/google-b...-results-62914

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12343597

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:haha: brought this up in the WTF thread before the major outlets picked it up. So much evil in such a small sting.

Hello, not all problems offer such wonderful things as popups with error-codes. Those are the easy problems. Most of the significant problems I've had over the past few years have had their solutions buried deep in google. Eg. my old laptop's faulty USB circuits, the XP-ATI-AMD updates that all cooperated to bork that laptop's processor, connectivity issues that manifest as nothing more clear than failure to connect to the internet (how many pieces of hardware and software go into enabling an internet connection?), etc etc.

Look, I realise you guys are geniuses, but it's not like I'm new to online search :confused: Maybe you noobs just encounter trivial problems :downcast:

As you point out, composing good search queries is crucial. My point is that composing good search queries is frequently very difficult. It's like diagnosing and treating a patient without any info on signs, symptoms, physiology, molecular biology, etc.

"there should be a super-good way to find the information you're looking for on the internet"

"doesn't altavista already do this? i always find internet on altavista"

"yeah sounds like a regular altavista search. maybe you need to get better at using altavista."



"there should be a giant free hyperlinked encyclopedia in many languages that contains all of humanity's knowledge about everything"

"isn't that what google is? i always find knowledge on google"

"yeah sounds like google in encyclopedia form. maybe you need to be better at using google like an encyclopedia."



"there should be a giant database containing everything you could possibly want to know about every movie ever made."

...

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Almost all of these problems can be solved with the right knowledge, but that knowledge is spread out all over the internet or in the heads of tech-support guys, and can be incredibly difficult to find. Not least because half the time the victim doesn't even know what to look for.

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http://www.google.com/search?q=what+am+i+looking+for%3F

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Originally Posted by Aimless

not all problems offer such wonderful things as popups with error-codes.

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No one has said such a thing.


Yahoo used to do a categorisation, directory type of service for the internet.
They dumped it.
Because it didn't work.



The effort, time, continued expense, that you're suggesting here, Google would be better off spending that educating users on how to perform proper searches with all the google operators that they allow searches to use. That not only provides better, more precise search returns, but allows the users more freedom is deciding, for themselves, which sources they prefer to use.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Not least because half the time the victim doesn't even know what to look for.

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x 50

the problem isn't search literacy, the problem is with understanding the problem and then finding the right answer (which requires other people to understand the same problem).

yahoo also used to do a search type of thing for the internet, and look at yahoo today :bulb:

you pointed out earlier that frequently people think a problem is one thing when it is in fact another. in light of those comments i find it surprising that you'd equate a smart repository of tech-problem fixes with a list of dumb categories on yahoo along the lines of "chess", "travel", "cooking". A more apt comparison would be between those things and the yahoo category "technology" :bulb:

diagnosing and solving tech problems that can lie within OSes, third-party software, computers, routers, etc. frequently requires expert knowledge if it's to be done in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of effort (that's one of the reasons why we have tech-support guys). i don't think it's insane to believe that a great deal of that expert knowledge can be turned into databases and smart algorithms. after all most tech-support centres have all sorts of algorithms and manuals for their employees to use when trying to sort out problems that aren't solved with "restart modem".

it's like you're saying we can't or shouldn't do smart things with information :bulb: now i don't care if it's done by google or by MPACUK, but i want to see it done. i realise that making things smarter and better-designed doesn't appeal to geeks, gamers, engineers, etc, but I am none of those things :mad:

Minx, I was kinda being an ass, but you do have to admit that your first post kinda sounded like, "I've got a great idea! Let's build a way to easily find important information on the internet!"

More directly, your approach is probably very time intensive and requires expert advice to work. Google likes algorithmic approaches to search problems, so it's unlikely they'd be receptive to your suggestion. I've found that inputting pretty obscure part numbers and symptoms can frequently point me in the right direction. Hell, I'm working with a few bits of lab equipment that probably only a few hundred people even own and I can normally find fixes for problems pretty quickly (without having to resort to tech support). It's all in the query phrasing and in knowing enough about your problem to appropriately describe it.

Just wait 50 years.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

Not least because half the time the victim doesn't even know what to look for.

[...]
I think google could alleviate a great deal of the world's suffering by amassing a giant collection of tech-support threads marked with "SOLVED" and then enabling interested private individuals or companies to tag and categorise the solutions in such a way that they'd be relatively easy for any remotely tech-savvy user to find.

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Sorry bud, but no matter how well you organize something, if you don't know what you're looking for, you are not going to find it.
You can have all the information you could dream of, you can do "smart things" with it until your heart burst. It doesn't solve the issue of the end user not knowing how to find it, what to look for, and why.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

Doesn't Google already do this? It's, you know, Google search. On the internet.

Look, I've never had to go beyond the first page of a Google query for a problem I'm having. I enter the error code or symptoms along with some specific info (like a product number or whatever) and generally get the solution. I think you just need to phrase your queries better.

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The primary problem is the tagging. I once fixed a friend's computer when mice ceased to function on it. Wasn't a hardware issue, a system file listing the locations to most of the .dlls for peripheral devices for pointers had been over-written by a bit of ad-ware. The fix was navigating to that particular file and retyping the default information. I got lucky in finding that source of such problems early on, but she never would have and I expect even most computer literate people would have a hard time tracking down and fixing that.

If it's easy enough for someone to add it to a repository and someone else to find it, then it will be easy enough to find on Google. If its too complicated to find on Google, its probably too complicated to add to the repository and find on it anyway.

LF: If that were to happen, how would you phrase that adding it to some giant repository? How would someone else phrase it to find it?

Just look at online 'diagnosis' websites a la WebMD. They take you through a basic questionnaire trying to narrow down possibilities, but at the end most of the results are pretty ridiculous and uninformative. And that's for heavily studied conditions on people that are more or less identical. When each computer system has its unique qualities and you're dealing with an obscure bug, I doubt a diagnosis/categorization utility would work better than a search utility.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

Minx, I was kinda being an ass, but you do have to admit that your first post kinda sounded like, "I've got a great idea! Let's build a way to easily find important information on the internet!"

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:-D I wasn't trying to claim originality, I was just trying to express my strong desire for this important service.

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More directly, your approach is probably very time intensive and requires expert advice to work. Google likes algorithmic approaches to search problems, so it's unlikely they'd be receptive to your suggestion.

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If anyone can afford to hire experts (or be able to involve a worldwide community of experts and interested amateurs) for the purpose of developing good algorithms for this sort of problem I imagine it's google. Or Microsoft, I suppose, considering their fantastic knowledge-base articles :o It would be great for them too--people would be able to spend more quality time looking at ads.

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I've found that inputting pretty obscure part numbers and symptoms can frequently point me in the right direction. Hell, I'm working with a few bits of lab equipment that probably only a few hundred people even own and I can normally find fixes for problems pretty quickly (without having to resort to tech support).

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Hmmm it's not surprising that that's relatively easy, given the small number of people who are likely to own that obscure equipment. It's already a fairly narrow search. Compare that with the millions of people who collectively own or operate trillions of lines of code or pieces of hardware that can break in various ways. The internet will be flooded with the most common complaints and solutions, unparsed, with small chance of being steered towards the zebras when necessary.

I think the problem is similar to the problems encountered by physicians who have to work with huge numbers of unselected patients.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

Sorry bud, but no matter how well you organize something, if you don't know what you're looking for, you are not going to find it.
You can have all the information you could dream of, you can do "smart things" with it until your heart burst. It doesn't solve the issue of the end user not knowing how to find it, what to look for, and why.

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Hi,

over thousands of years mankind has developed the art of using manuals and flow-charts and other algorithms to steer people towards the right answers. Organisation is only one aspect, searching and guiding are other important aspects.

I invite you to consider medicine.

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

The primary problem is the tagging. I once fixed a friend's computer when mice ceased to function on it. Wasn't a hardware issue, a system file listing the locations to most of the .dlls for peripheral devices for pointers had been over-written by a bit of ad-ware. The fix was navigating to that particular file and retyping the default information. I got lucky in finding that source of such problems early on, but she never would have and I expect even most computer literate people would have a hard time tracking down and fixing that.

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This is an illustration of the kind of problem I was thinking of. I have also encountered similar problems that have cropped unexpectedly, due to misbehaving software (adware, spyware, ANTI-adware/-spyware).

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

If it's easy enough for someone to add it to a repository and someone else to find it, then it will be easy enough to find on Google. If its too complicated to find on Google, its probably too complicated to add to the repository and find on it anyway.

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Hi,

please consider the possibility that it is easy to write up and easy to find on a sufficiently well-designed site, but difficult to find in the midst of thousands of google hits for seemingly similar problems.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

Just look at online 'diagnosis' websites a la WebMD. They take you through a basic questionnaire trying to narrow down possibilities, but at the end most of the results are pretty ridiculous and uninformative. And that's for heavily studied conditions on people that are more or less identical.

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Er, hang on. People aren't more or less identical. Diseases, people, and their environments are also very complex and despite being "heavily studied" their interactions aren't always well understood. Moreover, it's easier and faster (er, MORE ETHICAL :o) to use a trial-and-error based approach to diagnostics and "treatment" on hardware than on people.

Btw, those diagnostic tools aren't always very useful to the layman partly because they don't do a very good job of incorporating the decision-making aids available to experts. Good computer algorithms coupled with structured forms (administered by trained personnel if necessary) can do much better than many humans can alone. Are machines so much more complicated than people and diseases that they can't benefit from structured analysis?

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

LF: If that were to happen, how would you phrase that adding it to some giant repository? How would someone else phrase it to find it?

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Beats me. I would say it may be insurmountable, but I expect I would have said the same thing about a bunch of stuff considered by Google's algorithms.

The problem with your proposition, Aimless, is that those who this database would be targetted at would also be the ones least likely to use it.

I worked as level one tech support for Pay TV for a time - a minimum 50% of all "technical" problems would be solved by either:
a) taking the smartcard out and putting it back in or
b) simply resetting the receiver by switching the power off, then back on.

Those two simple steps also posed major problems sometimes: To some people I had to explain what a "power plug" was (in one case giving up after an explanation of 5 minutes), others had to be told where to find the "Power Off"-button on the remote control ("The big red one. Yes, there's only one red button. No, not the 'OK' button."). Still others had problems with the smartcard ("Please put it back in with the golden chip on it facing to the front and upwards - you have to be able to see the chip and it has to be on the side which disappears into the receiver. Yes, the golden chip. Yes, the colour gold. No, if you can still see the chip then you've inserted the card backwards...")

Heh, I worked as in-house tech support for a brief time and had very similar experiences. The first question I always asked when given a hardware problem was "Is it plugged in?". 50% the people would get annoyed at me for asking them such a stupid and obvious question, because of course they checked and it's plugged in. 50% of the times I asked it, the device was not plugged in, and worked perfectly once that was rectified. There was some overlap in those two groups.

Today again: "The Internet is not working!" - "What kind of error do you get?" - "Error?" - "Yes, do you get a 404, 'invalid user', something else..." - "Yes, there's this red cross over the computers in the bottom right!" - "Did you plug the network cable into the correct wall socket? There are two, one is labelled 'PC', the other doesn't work." - "Yes, of course! I'm not stupid!"

Okay, I walk over, take a look at the wall socket, unplug the network cable, plug it into the socket labelled 'PC' and it works...

I think I have you beat. We had a woman who didn't know how to put a picture frame on a wall. Not like, how to find a stud, if necessary, drive a nail, et cetera, no, what confused her was the physical act of picking up the frame, lining up the bracket in the back with the nail, placing the bracket on the nail, and removing her hands from the frame. This process confused her. And she drove to the store...consider that for a moment, that a person who didn't know how to place a frame on a wall, and was confused as to how the physical action worked (we even visually demonstrated it to her, and she still didn't get it) operated a motor vehicle in order to arrive at the store, to ask us this question...

:noob:

Cross-posting from Dread's thread in D&D!

http://www.marco.org/2617546197

Like I said, old media cycle that Google has acknowledged: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/...gine-spam.html

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/28/the...the-spam-wars/

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Originally Posted by Illusions

I think I have you beat. We had a woman who didn't know how to put a picture frame on a wall. Not like, how to find a stud, if necessary, drive a nail, et cetera, no, what confused her was the physical act of picking up the frame, lining up the bracket in the back with the nail, placing the bracket on the nail, and removing her hands from the frame. This process confused her. And she drove to the store...consider that for a moment, that a person who didn't know how to place a frame on a wall, and was confused as to how the physical action worked (we even visually demonstrated it to her, and she still didn't get it) operated a motor vehicle in order to arrive at the store, to ask us this question...

:noob:

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Naw, still can beat you - background: The Pay TV sender I worked for also broadcasted PayPerView Hardcore Porn, which needed a special smartcard with a separate PIN.
Me: "Could you please remove the smartcard, look for the message code '303' and then insert it again?"
Customer: "Sorry, I'm not able to do that."
Me: "You're not able to do that?"
Customer: "Well, my whole body is already lubed up, you see..."

Why would you tell someone that? :haha:

I get frustrated with tech support sometimes, because I'm not a fucking moron so I hate having to go through 20 "yes, done that" bits where even when I say "already done that" they want me to re-do it with them on the phone before continuing. The problem sometimes is that while too many people are such morons, if this is the 7th time you've had to speak to them and its never worked yet and every time you have to start from "is it plugged in" it gets very frustrating. My Sky Broadband modem was delivered to us DOA, every person I spoke to would require starting from the start until they'd remotely attempt to tweak something then say "give it 24 hours and try again". Try again: Didn't work, call up: "Is it plugged in, have you tried replacing the filter?". Seriously, can you not see on your notes I spoke to you yesterday and the day before and each day for the last 10 days and YES IT'S PLUGGED IN!? :mad: "Well just double-check for me please, this is the cause of a lot of errors. Have you tried replacing the filter yet?" "ARRRGGHHH! :mad:" "Just try unplugging the filter and replugging it" "That will cut off this phone call you know as the phone is plugged in to the filter and I've done it every day for two weeks now" "Don't worry I'll call you back within 15 minutes"

Took nearly a month and an engineer coming on site and still not being able to figure out why it wasn't working before ultimately they realised my modem was from a dodgy batch and could they replace it? Every single bloody day though, replace the filter, unplug and replug it.

This is because Brits don't do service very well. I've needed a modem replaced twice, it took no time at all to convince them and less than a day to get a new one. Once I even had to get a technician to look at the socket, why that took just a couple of hours.

Its really in the way you address the tech. Proper use of technical terms goes a looooong way. A quick, yet complete, run down of the issue and your attempts can cut out a lot of beef too.

Wouldn't believe how many people I help that don't understand that to continue your online job appilication, you have to learn how to scroll; or that hitting the print button on a webpage doesn't mean you'll be paying for only 1 page.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Why would you tell someone that? :haha:

I get frustrated with tech support sometimes, because I'm not a fucking moron so I hate having to go through 20 "yes, done that" bits where even when I say "already done that" they want me to re-do it with them on the phone before continuing. The problem sometimes is that while too many people are such morons, if this is the 7th time you've had to speak to them and its never worked yet and every time you have to start from "is it plugged in" it gets very frustrating. My Sky Broadband modem was delivered to us DOA, every person I spoke to would require starting from the start until they'd remotely attempt to tweak something then say "give it 24 hours and try again". Try again: Didn't work, call up: "Is it plugged in, have you tried replacing the filter?". Seriously, can you not see on your notes I spoke to you yesterday and the day before and each day for the last 10 days and YES IT'S PLUGGED IN!? :mad: "Well just double-check for me please, this is the cause of a lot of errors. Have you tried replacing the filter yet?" "ARRRGGHHH! :mad:" "Just try unplugging the filter and replugging it" "That will cut off this phone call you know as the phone is plugged in to the filter and I've done it every day for two weeks now" "Don't worry I'll call you back within 15 minutes"

Took nearly a month and an engineer coming on site and still not being able to figure out why it wasn't working before ultimately they realised my modem was from a dodgy batch and could they replace it? Every single bloody day though, replace the filter, unplug and replug it.

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We probably had the same script - however, we actually did take notes and didn't make the customer go through this rigmarole twice (unless he was an obnoxious ass, of course).

Here's my script on how to do a firmware reset on a certain receiver:
Me: "Now, please listen to my instructions before you do anything. This so-called firmware reset consists of three steps, which you have to do in close order, which I will tell you now before you do anything. So please listen to me before acting on it: First you have to pull out the power plug and re-insert it. Second step: You have to..."
Customer: "Okay, power plug is out and in again? What now?"
Me: muttering something

Another one would be:
Me: "Please press the triangular button which shows to the right now. Yes, it looks like a triangle. To the right. It's right to the OK button. Below the info button. If begin counting from the top, it would be the ninth button on the right side."
(That's why we had photos of every remote control and all front panels of every receiver)

Last but not least:
Me: "What do you see on your screen?"
Customer: "A flowerpot."
(In German, "on" and "on top of" are the same word)

Then there was a time where I was working for EuropCar.
Customer: "The car just broke down" (huge noise from the highway behind him, had difficulty understanding him)
Me: "Ok, sir, no problem but could you get into the car again, I can hardly hear you due to the noise."
Cust: "That's not possible."
Me: "Uh, why?"
Cust: "The car is burning."

Caller: "Hello, this is the military police of the US airbase at Ramstein. We have a car parked in a forbidden location. Could you tell us who rented it?"
Me: "Seems to be a Mr. Yusuf Abdul from Afghanistan"
That was during the Afghanistan war.