In a completely unrelated post I pointed out that someone's question was a great question because:

This is a tough question to Google for unless you know the right search terms.

To the extent that you would expect a Scrum Master to know what a "daily scrum" is, or a PMP to know what a project charter is, I think you could certainly define certain classes of question as too basic to be asked without some context showing why the question is on-topic.

On the other hand, using the fact that search results can be found on Google is not, ipso facto, sufficient to disqualify a question. I would certainly classify an easily-searchable question as having a smell, but I think there needs to be more than one axis in the metric.

Perhaps a better metric is whether the question shows a lack of research, or is asking for a complete and predigested tutorial. I will go so far as to suggest that a "failure to Google" is a prerequisite for both these conditions, but is not sufficient in itself to make the diagnosis.

In a completely unrelated post I pointed out that someone's question was a great question because:

This is a tough question to Google for unless you know the right search terms.

To the extent that you would expect a Scrum Master to know what a "daily scrum" is, or a PMP to know what a project charter is, I think you could certainly define certain classes of question as too basic to be asked without some context showing why the question is on-topic.

On the other hand, using the fact that search results can be found on Google is not, ipso facto, sufficient to disqualify a question. I would certainly classify an easily-searchable question as having a smell, but I think there needs to be more than one axis in the metric.

Perhaps a better metric is whether the question shows a lack of research, or is asking for a complete and predigested tutorial. I will go so far as to suggest that a "failure to Google" is a prerequisite for both these conditions, but is not sufficient in itself to make the diagnosis.