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Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

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Re: Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

#41

Post by [deleted] »

wyclif wrote: post #29
ergo98 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quora is a bit like Twitter in the sense that many signed up because Bruce Willis' son was on it. On Quora there's that elite selection of superstars who draw the proles in. It's entirely unsustainable though. It is a community destined to fail, as cool as it is right now.

Seriously, you think Quora is cool? No. It's already uncool and getting more and more uncool as we speak. You can see how the quality has degraded over the last month or so, before they made it invite only again. You already see mega-important SV people like Scoble posting inane images on questions in order to game upvoting, &c.

[deleted]

Re: Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

#42

Post by kijinbear »

chucknthem wrote: post #39
kijinbear wrote: post #32

Go to StackOverflow.com and you can instantly see what kind of questions are being asked and answered. The UI may feel a little cluttered, but the information is there. Hang out for a few more minutes and you can appreciate the value of this service. You might as well sign up and start using it. Go to Quora.com and you're asked to log in or create an account. No idea what's behind that login. Not even a search bar. S…

Part of the reason for quora to do that might be to limit their user base to people who already know what it is (people who are referred) Exposing what it is and making it really easy for anyone to sign up will make it degrade into yahoo answers in no time. Stack overflow on the other hand embraces new programmers asking and finding answers to questions because they're all going to be related to programming (if not i…

Maybe you're right, and maybe they want to stay small for now. In which case the linked article is misleading in comparing Quora with StackOverflow.

That doesn't change the fact that I do everything I can to avoid websites that tell me to sign up first. It just feels incredibly disrespectful.

Facebook might be able to get away with "sign up first, and we'll show you what this shit is all about", but not your average startup.

Re: Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

#43

Post by rst »

chucknthem wrote: post #39
kijinbear wrote: post #32

Go to StackOverflow.com and you can instantly see what kind of questions are being asked and answered. The UI may feel a little cluttered, but the information is there. Hang out for a few more minutes and you can appreciate the value of this service. You might as well sign up and start using it. Go to Quora.com and you're asked to log in or create an account. No idea what's behind that login. Not even a search bar. S…

Part of the reason for quora to do that might be to limit their user base to people who already know what it is (people who are referred) Exposing what it is and making it really easy for anyone to sign up will make it degrade into yahoo answers in no time. Stack overflow on the other hand embraces new programmers asking and finding answers to questions because they're all going to be related to programming (if not i…

The referral-based strategy may have limited the user base for a while, but after all the press they've gotten lately, it's certainly no longer working for them. (Besides which, if the goal was to keep using that as a strategy long-term, a more explicit invitation-based system, a la forrst, might have been more sustainable.)

Unfortunately for them, what really attracted people to quora originally was more that the initial users were an interesting group of people, than anything particularly unique that the software was doing. Now that everyone and their dog has an account, the really interesting stuff is rather harder to find, for the moment; their challenge is dealing with that before "no one goes there anymore; it's too crowded."

Re: Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

#44

Post by thesethings »

nonrecursive wrote: post #20

Is anyone on Forrst? Their service looks like something I woudl like. On the technology end, it looks easy to post images and code for the purpose of discussion, and that would make my life a little easier. The community looks like one I'd like to be a part of, too. On the other hand, I'm currently re-working my own blog and am really enjoying designing the front end and tooling the backend to fit my needs precisely.…

I've used Forrst and really like it. I wouldn't compare it to your blog any more than any other social site: it's going to enable social interactions + discovery that you wouldn't get on your site... but give you less control. (A fair trade I think. Both have their benefits.)

Like HN, Forrst is full of people who are earnest and invested in their behavior there. It doesn't mean everybody is always right or perfectly behaved, but they are sincere and really care about the topics at hand. I also like how Forrst users particpate when they have something of value to offer, rather than just to hear themselves type. (that's one thing that bothers me about Quora: people speak up without any really compelling reason to. Compare to HN when most skip threads if we're just going to repeat something.) Forrst also has excellent design and that permeates the culture and people treat design both as a craft and a technical skill.

The only thing I don't like about Forrst is probably just me: they have some etiquette guidelines i don't totally get. You can show work that's in progress, but i once saw a guy show a fully completed piece of work that a moderator thought was too self-promote-y. Then I once got modded because I showed some industrial (non digital) design ( because it wasn't graphic, though featured graphic typography on a sign). It's possible this policy has evolved OR I just didn't read the fine print closely enough, but i felt confused.

I would encourage you to check it out.

Re: Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

#45

Post by sharpshoot »

leon_ wrote: post #30
spolsky wrote: post #11

To be honest I don't really think Stack Exchange and Quora are the same thing. Or, to be jargonny, "we're not in the same space." Quora is Yahoo!Answers done really well... it's more social and bloggy, and it's for chat and subjective questions. It's kind of like Twitter in a Q&A format with long, blog-type answers. It's full of VCs and tech journalists, unlike Yahoo!Answers which is full of teenagers asking question…

I'm from Europe and I know SO. I didn't know Quora until I forced myself to click on one of the Quora links on HN. To me it looked like a SO knockoff and I guess it looks that way to most people.

Use it and have a look at how the community works. You'll find the intricacies in its product design interesting.

Re: Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

#46

Post by alextp »

simonw wrote: post #37
leon_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Europe and I know SO. I didn't know Quora until I forced myself to click on one of the Quora links on HN. To me it looked like a SO knockoff and I guess it looks that way to most people.

Look deeper. Quora's magic sauce is that it only shows you questions that either your contacts have interacted with or that correspond to topics you are tracking. As a result, every time you visit you get stuff that you are genuinely interested in.

Or you see no new stuff at all (if you don't have enough contacts/topics) while there are lots of interesting things going on in the other parts of quora that you have almost no way of finding out about without heavy searching.

This pretty much made me stop using quora.

Re: Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

#48

Post by simonw »

alextp wrote: post #46
simonw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look deeper. Quora's magic sauce is that it only shows you questions that either your contacts have interacted with or that correspond to topics you are tracking. As a result, every time you visit you get stuff that you are genuinely interested in.

Or you see no new stuff at all (if you don't have enough contacts/topics) while there are lots of interesting things going on in the other parts of quora that you have almost no way of finding out about without heavy searching. This pretty much made me stop using quora.

I guess that's why they push you so aggressively to pick up contacts and topics - some of the stuff they do there is really clever, like inviting your friends to suggest topics for you if you don't have any yet.

Re: Forget Quora, New York's Stack Overflow Is Killing It

#50

Post by duinote »

simonw wrote: post #37
leon_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Europe and I know SO. I didn't know Quora until I forced myself to click on one of the Quora links on HN. To me it looked like a SO knockoff and I guess it looks that way to most people.

Look deeper. Quora's magic sauce is that it only shows you questions that either your contacts have interacted with or that correspond to topics you are tracking. As a result, every time you visit you get stuff that you are genuinely interested in.

it is a small bubble, they put a few ppl in a bubble and just blow that particular bubble big.
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