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How Quora died

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Re: How Quora died

#211

Post by frabjoused »

AlbertCory wrote: post #172
frabjoused wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can't see a something like "show answers to related questions directly under a single answer to the intended question" being a middle-manager decision.

Re: How Quora died

#212

Post by logbiscuitswave »

Quota was once a very good website. I spent a lot of time contributing and answering questions.

Then the email spams started happening pushing digests of irrelevant and in some cases harmful recommendations.

Then the increasingly asshole-oriented designs around serving up search results and blocking the content unless you signed in or registered.

Then the Q/A quality digressed massively to the point where it became less and less useful. There were also changes to the design that merged questions, answers, and recommendations into a largely incoherent mess where I was never really sure what I was looking at or why.

Not wanting any further association with the dumpster fire Quora was becoming, I ended up deleting every one of my answers and comments before deleting my account entirely.

Now I take pains to block Quora results from my searches and never click on a Quora link if I come across it. It seems like I’m not missing much based on the terribly awful “innovations” mentioned in this article.

Re: How Quora died

#213

Post by city41 »

krkhan wrote: post #116

I was an active contributor to Quora in the mid-10's -- my answers gained some 3m views. It was really something back then, as many people have fondly reminisced about the era. There were so many great writers who brought so much understanding to whatever crazy stuff they were passionate about by writing for free on Quora. You had diplomats, chefs, former propaganda writers, people living through violent conflict, do…

Quora really captured lightning in a bottle around that time. I used to get a weekly (daily? Can't remember) email from Quora and I would read just about every question in it. I came to look forward to the emails. I've never had that experience with any other other newsletter.

Re: How Quora died

#214

Post by multjoy »

oxfordmale wrote: post #108
multjoy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is how it works. It is an encyclopaedia, not a breaking news site.

The problem is that PR companies can push out whatever they want, where as an ordinary individual with personal knowledge of a topic, can't. It means many Wiki articles on person or companies, are often glorified advertisements, rather than encyclopedic entries.

A blog post can be sufficient reference.

The point is that Wikipedia isn't original research. You updating the page on the basis of personal knowledge isn't the way it is supposed to work.

Re: How Quora died

#215

Post by schleck8 »

Quora is the spammiest large website, for sure. Depending on your query like 80 % of responses are scams from India and/or SEO fluff bullshit and self promotion.

Re: How Quora died

#216

Post by njharman »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #54
ivanmontillam wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikimedia is a non-profit that operates like a for-profit when the yearly round of donations comes around. They literally hoard money[0]. I will get downvoted for this, but it's my perception. -- [0]: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/wikipedia-millions-bank-beg/

>I will get downvoted for this, but it's my perception. I will always downvote a comment when someone writes something like this. It is irrelevant to the conversation and screams insecurity.

100%

Re: How Quora died

#217

Post by crtified »

I'm waiting for the inevitable counter-culture pushback against AI, where suddenly humanity realises how valuable it's "pure, non-AI polluted" content bases are/were, as a unique and critical data class in their own right.

Re: How Quora died

#218

Post by klabb3 »

yannis wrote: post #29

Not only Quora, but many other sites including the various "stackexchange" sites started declining I would say from about 2018, so this is not a phenomenon attributed to llms. IMHO I attribute this to the following: a) The overuse of social media conditioning users to provide short answers, rather than long thoughtful write-ups, b) Most topics have been saturated to the limit c) lack of interest from the new generati…

You are missing the elephant in the room, the incentives that drive shit content: SEO. Both quora and stack exchange – as businesses – are downstream of Google search in particular. Their main goal is to appease PageRank. All else follows from that.

Re: How Quora died

#219

Post by lowbloodsugar »

I think everyone here is missing that the founders created this to make money. They didn’t found a non-profit. And it turns out, people don’t actually want to pay for this, and having taken rich people’s money the only way to pay for it is the slide into Ads and that inevitably leads to this garbage. Why are people surprised?
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