I am wondering why we should keep on answering questions related to Google Scholar (GS). This is a product from a well known advertising company (Alphabet) which is poorly documented, absolutely obscure in its working mechanisms. GS is a tool that simply exploits other providers of information, without giving proper credits or without even explaining where the informations are coming. It is not hosting copyrighted documents, like other similar tools did (academia.edu is one that comes to my mind), but it has some similiarities with them.

The questions are in general not shopping questions, but they ask for "how to do" things with GS.

In the past, there were "similar" questions in AcademiaSE for example for academia.edu (how do I upload, how do I find something, etcetc). Nowadays, questions about academia.edu are off-topic, while google scholar questions have a tag and are considered acceptable.

Should we change this?

I am wondering why we should keep on answering questions related to Google Scholar (GS). This is a product from a well known advertising company (Alphabet) which is poorly documented, absolutely obscure in its working mechanisms. GS is a tool that simply exploits other providers of information, without giving proper credits or without even explaining where the information is coming from. It is not hosting copyrighted documents, like other similar tools did (academia.edu is one that comes to my mind), but it has some similarities with them.

The questions are in general not shopping questions, but they ask for "how to do" things with GS.

In the past, there were "similar" questions in Academia.SE for example for academia.edu (how do I upload, how do I find something, etc.). Nowadays, questions about academia.edu are off-topic, while GS questions have a tag and are considered acceptable.

Should we change this?