Live data from Hacker News

How Quora died

slate.com

391–400 of 427 posts

Re: How Quora died

#391

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.

Downvoted your comment immediately, as unnecessary and hostile. Parent just made a comment that knew would be unpopular and expressed that.

Re: How Quora died

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the community is tired of people asking for help with their homework I don't think anyone objects to closing those questions. That's not really what this is about. My questions are very clearly not asking for help with homework and trivial "how do I write a for loop" or "it doesn't work" questions. Still get downvoted/closed frequently. Most often: * It gets closed as duplicate because there's a vaguely similar…

Feel free to drop links to your said questions. Often it's just vague allegations with little evidence. Getting something closed as a duplicate shouldn't be taken as a slight. It's often good that various formulations of a question then can point to the same answer. Or if the answer to the other question answers yours, isn't it just good that you and other people will be directed there? It's a Q&A site, not a forum.…

It's in my real name so I don't want to link any of my questions, but I'll start keeping a list for when this comes up next.

Re: How Quora died

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one example, I wrote this comment a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38974614 But to expand a bit, for example I'm annoyed at many of the entries calling their subject "conspiracy theory/ theorist". Not that conspiracy theories and their believers don't exist, but at this point it has become a highly pejorative and judgemental term to frame ideas and narratives that need to be stigmatized rather…

Are any of the details that you were upset they included in her bio (e.g. that she's a contract scientist running a small business) incorrect or irrelevant? They certainly don't seem irrelevant to me, obviously they should explain what kind of scientist she is and what she does for a living — are you just mad because they happen to make her look like a less prestigious scientist and/or reliable source then you would…

Ok, can you explain what is a contract scientist as opposed to a scientist? Susan Crockford on her blog defines herself as "a zoologist with 40 years of experience" and "former adjunct professor at the University of Victoria"- that sounds like a scientist to me, without any need for further qualifiers.

She also has a consulting company that specialises in identifying bone fragments of North American fish, birds and mammals- the clients are mostly universities, museums and park/ forest services. I don't see references on the company's page about searching in "the scat of wild animals for ... items", which seems at one time very specific and vague. Curious choice. (*)

More, just on the lede: "she is a blogger"- no, she also runs a blog, as many scientists do. "her blog posts on polar bear biology which are unsupported ..."- imprecise, we don't yet know what those posts are about- and yet we already know that they're "unsupported by the consensus". Ah, by the way- this is just wrong: consensus is not a support for anything- you might go with or against the consensus, certainly not look for its support.

The "Early life and education" section fails to mention the title of her doctorate thesis, but instead dedicates half of its seven lines to a completely out-of-context, minute controversy about what one "Lars Olof Bjorn" thinks of one line of one article by her in 2009.

Career section "Business" ends (after two lines) with the following sentence (again, at the same time very precise and vague): "Since the start of her career, she has worked primarily through paid contracts for specific work on a variety of topics". What is it even supposed to mean? You know, that would also apply to me. "Paid contracts" indeed, for "specific work" on "a variety of topics".

In the "Books" section, only one book is cited (Google gives me 5 or 6) and again, half of the space is dedicated to the criticism from a single person.

The "Polar bears" section is basically entirely dedicated to a controversy- and still we don't know anything about what Susan Crockford claims about polar bears, why she does it, what are her points, how does she go against the "consensus". Nothing.

I'll stop here. A cursory read is enough to understand that there has been no attempt whatsoever to approach this subject with a minimum of detachment- the entry almost reads like a parody, or a satirical piece. If you don't see it, I'm sorry, think it's a problem.

* If I can pinpoint what feels wrong with these statements, is the constant oscillation between extremely vague ("a small business", "other items", "known for posts about polar bear biology") and curiously precise ("contract scientist", "in the scat of wildlife", "gained her interest in elementary school") etc.

Re: How Quora died

#394
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…

What would be a platform that is NOT contributor-driven ??

Netflix. The New York Times.

Re: How Quora died

#395
This can't be a commercial activity. It has to be the Wikipedia model. If it supposed to make a profit, all that baggage comes into play.

Imagine if your local library was run by entrepreneurs.

Re: How Quora died

#396

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.

That's so Reddit, this here is Hacker News.

Re: How Quora died

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially any issue that relates to politics or geopolitics tends to have a strong left wing bias, as if it is written from the perspective of the left wing against the right wing.

Then again, reality has a well-known liberal bias. ;-)

[flagged]

Re: How Quora died

#398
post #323
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, prelon Twitter was not-for-profit.

Good to know a publicly-traded company known to censor content to be more advertiser-friendly and with notoriously predatory content discovery algorithms designed to elicit emotions to keep users coming is apparently not-for-profit if it happens to be unprofitable during the ZIRP period. Or is Facebook also not-for-profit? If anything, Musk is less profit-oriented. Someone looking to profit off the platform wouldn't…

[deleted]

Re: How Quora died

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, reality has a well-known liberal bias. ;-)

[flagged]

There are not really left wing people in US politics. Democrats are center-right. Some of that is the legacy of Bill Clinton and "triangulation".

Re: How Quora died

#400

Twelve years ago, Quora was a Silicon Valley darling and notoriously had one of the more difficult interview processes. How far they’ve fallen.

I must have missed this honeymoon period with Quora, I only ever remember it being as “that shitty site that tries to make me log in to view answers”. I treated it like that old “Experts Exchange” site, and just visually moved past it every time I saw it in search results. People in this thread speaking fondly of Quora has come to a complete shock to me to be honest. I thought everyone else also considered it just a…

I mean, user experience aside, the company had an inordinate amount of hype for a Q&A website. Guess it was one of those founder prestige stories. The concept of lionizing subject matter experts probably appealed to the Silicon Valley technocratic mindset, too.
Post reply on HN