Quora pays thousands for posting questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#61

Post by wp381640 » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:35 AM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #6

What happened to Quora anyway? When it started I recall it being super hot with crazy high quality answers. Then they started with logins being required and it all seemed to go downhill at an amazing speed.

I was a very active early Quora user and loved the site and network. It all seemed to go downhill when Charlie Cheever left.

Not sure on cause/effect or if he exactly left because of it - but I don't think it was a coincidence that Quora went hard on spam, walled garden and monetization strategies after one of two co-founders leaves.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#62

Post by nikkwong » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:40 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #5

$27k for 8000 questions, that's basically admitting they paid for spam. I don't see how this is a good product decision at all and the content quality has declined severely. Meanwhile being a Top Writer has done nothing for me other than getting the opportunity to buy quora branded swag from their store. Saying that this system is imbalanced and unfair seems to be an understatement.

The mind blowing fact is that they're advertising this metric as if it's a stat to be proud of. I think the average person browsing the internet would see this and instantly question the site's credibility. I would maybe understand this statistic being shared internally or in an email to partners--but published publicly on the internet? They're just looking to invite criticism and a loss of trust.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#63

Post by mi_lk » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:41 AM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #6

What happened to Quora anyway? When it started I recall it being super hot with crazy high quality answers. Then they started with logins being required and it all seemed to go downhill at an amazing speed.

For a long while when search results lead me to some interesting Quora questions, I couldn't browse the site without logging in. As a result I don't even bother anymore.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#64

Post by anonytrary » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:42 AM UTC

RickJWagner wrote: post #10

Quora is a little addictive. I get an email daily with several questions (and links to the answers.) Some I like, some I don't. But it is interesting to read.

I used to enjoy getting Quora digests. I remember seeing famous people and even some of my professors using Quora.

Jimmy "your premise is flawed" Wales was famous on Quora for his shutdowns. The site slowly started turning into a platform for marketers to pump their self-help/motivational channels.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#65

Post by james_s_tayler » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:46 AM UTC

madamelic wrote: post #7

Havoc wrote: post #6

What happened to Quora anyway? When it started I recall it being super hot with crazy high quality answers. Then they started with logins being required and it all seemed to go downhill at an amazing speed.

>What happened to Quora anyway? It became marketing. Almost every question turns into blatant and unhelpful pitches for the responder's startup. Same with Medium. Once the startup bros say a site is good for "native marketing", that's when the begins to die.

So economics eventually kills anything that's free to consume.

Well... I can't say that surprises me.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#66

Post by james_s_tayler » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

astura wrote: post #48

josteink wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. I’ve noticed my feed now contains more and more ads. And posts out of order. And posts on repeat. It’s clearly no longer the simple service which simply shows me the latest images posted by those I follow. It’s now a site I can tell is trying to game me, and that’s such a turn off. Facebook had that moment where they crossed a line and that was when I stopped posting. Instagram too is getting close. They sho…

Funny thing is a lot of those ads aren't even paid for, wannabe influencers post ads now to make themselves look like they are being paid to post ads, to eventually get paid to post ads. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/influ...

lolll I never thought about that but damn. Yeah, makes sense.

Life is almost comical.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#67

Post by yumario » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

With Quora I learned how real filter bubbles are. During the 2016 elections I used to click on a lot of anti-trump questions. The site painted me a picture that trump was a "joke" and that he no one seriously believe he had a "chance". I was genuinely chock he started winning the primaries.. and then the elections. Looking back I still can't believe that I was so out of touch with reality. I haven't use Quora since them. Nowadays I actively try to ignore Quora when it shows up in search result. But when don't the answers are often short and wrong, or blatant self promotion.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#68

Post by james_s_tayler » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #43

madamelic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What happened to Quora anyway? It became marketing. Almost every question turns into blatant and unhelpful pitches for the responder's startup. Same with Medium. Once the startup bros say a site is good for "native marketing", that's when the begins to die.

Advertising seems to be toxic to free communication. It pretty much killed Usenet.

The corollary is that spending money on information is the control for this.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#69

Post by zerkten » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 12:52 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #47

anigbrowl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising seems to be toxic to free communication. It pretty much killed Usenet.

You can definitely have ads like Reddit or StackOverflow that work fine though. Messing with the content itself is the problem.

My impression was that the folks at Quora never got community and content the way that those two did. Stack Overflow's founders effectively provided an audio playbook in their podcast (before Jeff left) and anyone could have followed it to create a great Q&A site. This is just one demonstration of their attention to detail. They experimented with business models, and got growth on a technical platform that turns out to have been very efficient.

Quora seemed like the Silicon Valley solution to this problem with too much focus on monetization ahead of establishing a truly great experience. Looking at Crunchbase they had $226M funding compared to Stack Overflow's $68M. I know it's more complicated than those numbers, but I feel like that funding is squandered on Quora.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#70

Post by manigandham » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 1:23 AM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #60

manigandham wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think paying for content is the problem because it skews everything, unless there is very tight control over submissions.

Why ? What’s the difference between paying for upvotes in dopamine hits or money ?

Because people will do anything for even trivial amounts of money while upvotes are controlled by users which is self-correcting when the community and controls are well managed.