Why do folks ask you questions here on DU when they could google it, etc? An Answer.

[The Straight Story]

I am on unemployment right now. And I have a question (well, maybe more than one).

I could google it, I could call unemployment. Could (and have) check their website.

But my experience with those things have been the following:

A. Googling the question leads me to a lot of varied websites where I am not sure the people there really have real world experience relating to my situation/question.

B. Calling people at unemployment (or wherever) can lead to different answers.

C. Going to the website gives some answers - but based on my experience here I have seen that others may have found that their mileage was different than what was posted somewhere. I.E. what seemed obvious at one point no longer is because I have seen folks here go through something similar and have results I did not expect.

I know I can deduct from my UE wages I make during a week without losing my UE. But I am working on starting my own business (have two web domains I own relating to my business). If I start my own small company - me working alone on websites/hosting/coding - am I now employed even if I only do a few jobs a week? Will I lose ALL my benefits, or just have to record my wages I make with my business and decrement those from my weekly wages?

I could look elsewhere for the answers, but have come to trust the real life experience of fellow DU'ers on things (because when I thought I was right and knew something there have been people who come along and shown me I was wrong in my thinking).

Let me know your thoughts and experiences, I don't want to stay on unemployment for very long, but I also know I need it just to survive.

And yes, I will check sources outside of here - just hoping maybe someone here has been through the same and can give me answers I won't get from a simple search.

[rwheeler31]

1. Community

trusted sources.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. I don't know anything about UE -

do the rules vary from state to state?

If so, you're gonna have to sift through a lot of information - because DUers are wonderful when it comes to rushing in to help - in order to find whatever it is that might be applicable to you.

Good luck, though........................................

[angrycarpenter]

3. Here.

heres a link that I like to pull out every now and again. You can have a lot of fun with it. You can change the question if you know how to HTML.

[RoyGBiv]

5. I use that quite a bit ...

... especially for simple things.

I would like to add that you don't need to know HTML to change the question.

You just go here: http://lmgtfy.com/

Then type your question and click the button. It creates a URL you can pass on.

[angrycarpenter]

6. cool, I've been doing it the hard way. nt

[Broken_Hero]

4. Usually I ask the DU

when I can't find it on Google...the last time I used the DU brain trust, was a few years back when I forgot the firing order to a 89 GMC Vandura...I unplugged all the cords, thinking my memory to rehook them was great, but I failed.

I googled the firing order and I couldn't find anything, I asked the DU Braintrust and I got the answer in about 10 minutes.

[csziggy]

7. Many people do not know how to distill their questions down to the essential words

That will get the kind of results in a search. Reference librarians have known this for years. It is the one field where having a little knowledge about a lot of subjects is really useful.

And this is why librarians - or "information technologists" - will always have jobs. Information is great but someone has to organize it and be able to retrieve it in useful forms quickly. The average person, or people with busy lives, are not capable of doing those thing properly or consistently. Heck - I studied library science and my stuff is hopelessly disorganized! But I am a wiz at finding data since I have a talent for distilling questions to the fewest and most relevant search terms.

Good luck with your unemployment questions - if you are in Florida, let me know what you need. A friend of mine works in the Tallahassee office. She's an attorney who handles appeals so she knows the system intimately.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. I think people just forget they're on the internet.

and/or don't understand the potential of proper internet research.