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Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

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Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#51

> I will soon be gone from Quora. Were people ever in Quora? Isn't it one more of those 'free' sites that exploit the free labor of random people to sell questionable content? I don't get how someone can get so attached to his own image that considers himself to be part of a company that he s clearly not a part of.

People like helping people, it gives them a sense of self-worth. Answering questions also can make you feel smart. Now think about how many important websites are functionally built by free labor due to this: Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, subreddits you like, this site etc. It doesn't seem sustainable does it?

How not? I think the desire to share expertise is inexhaustible in some people. God bless them for that!

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#52

Quora is pretty terrible these days. Tons of low quality spammy answers, annoying forced sign-in prompt for viewing certain questions and answers. Same for stack overflow and related sites. A lot of long-term contributors but no payoff, no recognition. I guess you can put in on your resume.

I feel the same about SO. I have only contributed a tiny bit, and usually avoid it when I’m trying to debug something. Like 10 years ago the answers were pretty good, but now it seems like the accepted answer is often outdated, and below the fold there will be another answer with comments saying “this ought to be the accepted answer.” It also has a lot of low effort crap that I think must be motivated by a desire to gain clout. Specific question about functional programming method in Python: here’s how you can do that with a for loop.

I’ve wondered for years why everyone raves about this website like it’s a cultural institution to us programmers. I thought it was just me that’s underwhelmed.

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#53
I also don't use quora much, main reasons:

- No way to hide "requests for anecdotes" which seem to be more like click-bait these days.

- No incentive for de-duplicating questions (resulting in a lot of duplicates).

... it's a shame because these problems don't seem all that difficult to solve/mitigate.

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#54
I unsubscribed from Quora emails because I was troubled by all of the engagement manipulation in what they sent me and how well it worked. As long as it works on people and creators and consumers don’t punish platforms for promoting manipulative content, these things will continue to exist.

You can blame as much as you want but these things will never go away until people learn to leave them.

Demonizing things doesn’t work (masking, drugs, alcohol, , ) and it leads to evasion, black markets, and reactionary opposition.

You have to actually teach people how things work, a reality based message about positives and negatives, and a respect for several disagreeing viewpoints in order to reach optimum outcomes which are never “goal zero”.

The harder you squeeze the more will slip through your fingers whether it’s through moralization or authoritarianism.

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#55

> I will soon be gone from Quora. Were people ever in Quora? Isn't it one more of those 'free' sites that exploit the free labor of random people to sell questionable content? I don't get how someone can get so attached to his own image that considers himself to be part of a company that he s clearly not a part of.

It’s a game, winning feels good. They also do pay top contributors.

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#56
"Let me tell you what Quora really is: Quora is the plaything of a couple of toddler luck** who, not content with having somehow pocketed generational wealth by the age of 25, felt obliged to bestow upon us the be-all, end-all: the world’s “best source for knowledge.” I’m serious about that s** – it’s their actual tagline. Not the writings of Isaac Newton nor the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. Not the dozens of pre-existing question-and-answer sites. Not Wikipedia – a publicly-curated, global encyclopedia containing more than 25 million articles on literally every subject known to man. Not even, f**, the very rise of the Internet itself – unarguably the greatest explosion of information delivery and content creation in history. No, these were but stepping stones for the unadulterated perfected brilliance that Charlie Cheever and Adam D'Angelo bequeathed in the form of Quora. Inimitable, quintessential Quora."

https://jesuschristsiliconvalley-blog.tumblr.com/post/489620...

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#57

> I will soon be gone from Quora. Were people ever in Quora? Isn't it one more of those 'free' sites that exploit the free labor of random people to sell questionable content? I don't get how someone can get so attached to his own image that considers himself to be part of a company that he s clearly not a part of.

300 million monthly users as of this point in time. Were you living under a rock.

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#58

"Let me tell you what Quora really is: Quora is the plaything of a couple of toddler luck** who, not content with having somehow pocketed generational wealth by the age of 25, felt obliged to bestow upon us the be-all, end-all: the world’s “best source for knowledge.” I’m serious about that s** – it’s their actual tagline. Not the writings of Isaac Newton nor the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. Not the dozens of pre-…

The original version without weird censorship that made the text really difficult to read:

“Let me tell you what Quora really is: Quora is the plaything of a couple of toddler lucktards who, not content with having somehow pocketed generational wealth by the age of 25, felt obliged to bestow upon us the be-all, end-all: the world’s “best source for knowledge.” I’m serious about that shit – it’s their actual tagline. Not the writings of Isaac Newton nor the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. Not the dozens of pre-existing question-and-answer sites. Not Wikipedia – a publicly-curated, global encyclopedia containing more than 25 million articles on literally every subject known to man. Not even, fuck, the very rise of the Internet itself – unarguably the greatest explosion of information delivery and content creation in history. No, these were but stepping stones for the unadulterated perfected brilliance that Charlie Cheever and Adam D'Angelo bequeathed in the form of Quora. Inimitable, quintessential Quora.”

It’s easy to guess what “f**k” means, but f** is just confusing. And how is anyone supposed to guess what “luck**” could mean?

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#59

> I will soon be gone from Quora. Were people ever in Quora? Isn't it one more of those 'free' sites that exploit the free labor of random people to sell questionable content? I don't get how someone can get so attached to his own image that considers himself to be part of a company that he s clearly not a part of.

It's been a long time since I went to Quora but they used to have some really high quality answers from real experts. Quality was always a little hit and miss but the good answers were really good.

It still has quality content. You just have to pay attention to interact only with the type of content you want. Otherwise social network algo kicks in and starts spamming your feed with 'undesirable' content you interacted with. My feed is so full with stuff that I have real interest in that I avoid visiting the main feed to avoid getting stuck reading stuff.

Re: Leaving Quora after 10 years of answering questions

#60
post #58

"Let me tell you what Quora really is: Quora is the plaything of a couple of toddler luck** who, not content with having somehow pocketed generational wealth by the age of 25, felt obliged to bestow upon us the be-all, end-all: the world’s “best source for knowledge.” I’m serious about that s** – it’s their actual tagline. Not the writings of Isaac Newton nor the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. Not the dozens of pre-…

The original version without weird censorship that made the text really difficult to read: “Let me tell you what Quora really is: Quora is the plaything of a couple of toddler lucktards who, not content with having somehow pocketed generational wealth by the age of 25, felt obliged to bestow upon us the be-all, end-all: the world’s “best source for knowledge.” I’m serious about that shit – it’s their actual tagline.…

I agree with you, but the HN crowd is sometimes too prude and I was afraid of offending people’s sensibility
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