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How Quora died

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Re: How Quora died

#171

Post by BlueTemplar »

scarface_74 wrote: post #58
nonrandomstring wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. I've a simple but strict set of security rules for whether I'll use a website. - it does not want to run javascript - that I can access it over Tor without being blocked - that it will work in a text based browser like elinks Despite the protestations by idealogues that no such sites exist, HN meets all those requirements, as do dozens of useful sites I regularly use. If and only if I get to evaluate the qual…

I can 100% guarantees you that Quora didn’t die because of people who didn’t want to run JavaScript or be able to access it over Tor.

It's not completely unrelated I think.

It's hard to me to see how a site with a vision like Quora (had) can continue existing for long after they start ignoring accessibility issues.

Sounds like I should be looking for a Stack Overflow alternative too.

(I'm suspecting that this might be related to the recent issue of better accessibility also making it easier to abuse for neural network based abusers, and it certainly looks like a hard problem to solve for the most popular websites.)

Re: How Quora died

#172

Post by AlbertCory »

frabjoused wrote: post #169
CM30 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is the main problem I have with Quora. You go to a thread to look for answers to a question, then find the platform has merged in a bunch of answers to related questions alongside the ones I'm actually there to read. For example, I found this random question just now: https://www.quora.com/How-does-blockchain-technology-work-11 About half the answers there are actually to that question. The rest are to que…

I really fail to understand how a company can consciously guide itself to degrade so badly. Like these were actual decisions of meetings and the results of a ton of work of teams to implement. And it destroyed the site. Product of too much VC, probably.

Product of middle managers, the cause of nearly all corporate problems.

Re: How Quora died

#173

Post by scarface_74 »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #171
scarface_74 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can 100% guarantees you that Quora didn’t die because of people who didn’t want to run JavaScript or be able to access it over Tor.

It's not completely unrelated I think. It's hard to me to see how a site with a vision like Quora (had) can continue existing for long after they start ignoring accessibility issues. Sounds like I should be looking for a Stack Overflow alternative too. (I'm suspecting that this might be related to the recent issue of better accessibility also making it easier to abuse for neural network based abusers, and it certainl…

Accessibility is important. But it doesn’t relate to success of a company. Besides, modern screen readers and even accessibility affordances on modern cell phones - at least iPhones - don’t struggle or care whether the site uses JavaScript

Re: How Quora died

#174

Post by foota »

bertil wrote: post #147
baxtr wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sure this is the result of a heavy A/B testing culture. Every single idea was probably increasing an important KPI. The page in it’s entirety got destroyed over time.

A/B tests are likely involved because no human would suggest those changes in earnest, but what metric could those tests have improved!? Either it’s a series of unchallenged false positives, or there’s a lot about web interface that neither I nor they understand, but I would challenge the idea that is the result of a well-informed A/B testing culture. It’s the output of a thousand monkeys running a thousand tests a d…

Answers per question?

Re: How Quora died

#175

Post by nonrandomstring »

scarface_74 wrote: post #162
nonrandomstring wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really flipped your wig didn't it? I'm intellectually curious, what you're so deeply invested in that was just threatened?

He’s right, people who always talk about they don’t use sites that require Javacript adds about as much to the conversation as people who show up in television conversations and say “I haven’t owned a television in 20 years, do people still watch TV?”

Forget about me for a moment.

Does Javascript really mean something important to you?

Re: How Quora died

#176

Post by _a_a_a_ »

ahoka wrote: post #153
Arainach wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At least with StackOverflow you know that the answers are all related to the same question. I don't know, most StackOverflow answers I run into are "closed as duplicate of " or "closed as duplicate of "

Or gods forbid, someone had a slightly open ended question.

Slightly open-ended doesn't seem to be a problem for me on SO. Where I've really had a problem is the admins not reading the question properly then closing it as already answered elsewhere. I find that screeching like a banshee gets it apologetically reopened. Bit frustrating but a flawed SO is better than no SO at all.

Re: How Quora died

#177

Post by saucymew »

From personal experience, the main Quora experience is their Digest e-mails; less than a third are relevant topics.

And there are now constant "Edit:" updates on answers addressing the trolls and hateful responses, further dampening my interest in answering questions.

Where have all the internet forums gone?

Re: How Quora died

#178

Post by Growtika »

Some potentially interesting information I've just checked that might give a new perspective:

From an SEO standpoint, Quora is currently at one of its peak levels.

- It has reached 267 million organic visitors per month: https://i.imgur.com/899g3Jm.png

- Quora's organic traffic is quite diverse https://i.imgur.com/JfbYKH1.png

Google's helpful content update has increased traffic for sites like Quora, Stack Overflow, and Reddit. In many instances, I believe this boost lacks justification.

Quora's user experience is not intuitive. Although they removed the signup wall, which impacted their bounce rate and caused millions of organic visitors to leave their site shortly after clicking on a Quora result in a search engine, reading an answer on Quora now feels overwhelmingly disorganized.

Re: How Quora died

#179

Post by wonderfulcloud »

Apart from how most internet companies get worse when money comes into play.

I find that most of social media went south around the time of Trump's election and the heavy partisan moderation that followed it.

Quora further seems to have been taken over by Chinese paid writers.

Re: How Quora died

#180

Post by araes »

asveikau wrote: post #41
ethbr1 wrote: post #7

If your core business product is content contributed by users... I'm turning to the opinion that you need a C-level ombudsman- / dean of contributors-type role. Whose sole job it is to (1) figure out what contributors are thinking and want & (2) advocate for them inside the company. Every contributor-driven platform has eventually jumped the shark, and all in exactly the same way. Management begins to take contributi…

> Every contributor-driven platform has eventually jumped the shark, and all in exactly the same way. Do you think Wikipedia has jumped the shark? Obviously not perfect, but it's certainly a lot better than Quora in terms of accuracy. It's been around for a very long time and it doesn't seem to me like quality has decreased. Edit: to be clear and re-iterate, I never said Wikipedia was perfect, just that it has a cert…

I like Wikipedia and think it is still one of the better user contribution sites on the web.

However, having been a long time contributor to [Current Events](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events) (fought over because of news relevancy), there have been waves of sock puppeting and attempts to constantly revoke all edits from certain users, that often make you not want to contribute.

There is also this editorial talking about spending that makes some arguments about current issues with Wikipedia. Namely, that there's a lot of money going in, and not a lot of requested feature development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

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