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How Quora died

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Re: How Quora died

#421

Post by DarkUranium »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #356
Solvency wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't science journals the same? Why do I still have to pay some middle man?

My high level speculation is curation. There actually is (or should be?) some sort of peer review system by people for that journal. That labor is valuable. Also, simple grandfathering. I imagine once upon a time Science journals was a literal term. Easier to keep the same hook if your users were used to it in another medium.

As someone else mentioned, the labor is typically free. It's done by volunteers for various reasons (including, but not limited to, prestige ... literally working for exposure).

Also note that publishing to a particular high-profile comp sci journal tends to cost on the order of 1000 EUR (last I checked, a few years ago), more if you want it to be open/public access.

In other words, journals will:

- Charge hundreds to thousands of EUR to authors (typ. indirectly, by charging their university) in order to publish papers.

- Charge hundreds of EUR (at best) per year to readers for access to said papers.

- Not pay reviewers for the work in reviewing the papers.

It's literally just glorified super-expensive webhosting.

Re: How Quora died

#422

Post by qingcharles »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #209
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…

I have no experience running a site centered on user generated content, but it seems to me that the biggest problem/threat to any of them is the people who start showing up once it gains traction and becomes more popular. Early users are a different band of the population, on every successful platform from StackOverflow to Uber they create a particular culture which is impossible to maintain as the general public arr…

I don't think that's necessarily true. HN is one of the few survivors that has maintained its dignity due to the policies and work of the moderation team.

I've run huge forums and they have mostly enshittified because I didn't put the work into moderating them correctly. I would promote good users to moderators, and six months later they would all literally become Hitler and I would have to fire them, and then they become weaponized and the destruction of the site becomes circular.

Re: How Quora died

#423

Post by soarerz »

qingcharles wrote: post #422
throw__away7391 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no experience running a site centered on user generated content, but it seems to me that the biggest problem/threat to any of them is the people who start showing up once it gains traction and becomes more popular. Early users are a different band of the population, on every successful platform from StackOverflow to Uber they create a particular culture which is impossible to maintain as the general public arr…

I don't think that's necessarily true. HN is one of the few survivors that has maintained its dignity due to the policies and work of the moderation team. I've run huge forums and they have mostly enshittified because I didn't put the work into moderating them correctly. I would promote good users to moderators, and six months later they would all literally become Hitler and I would have to fire them, and then they b…

Its not because HN has better moderation/policy than others. Its because HN never needs to hit DAU/revenue goals.

Re: How Quora died

#424

Post by qingcharles »

soarerz wrote: post #423
qingcharles wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's necessarily true. HN is one of the few survivors that has maintained its dignity due to the policies and work of the moderation team. I've run huge forums and they have mostly enshittified because I didn't put the work into moderating them correctly. I would promote good users to moderators, and six months later they would all literally become Hitler and I would have to fire them, and then they b…

Its not because HN has better moderation/policy than others. Its because HN never needs to hit DAU/revenue goals.

This helps, but the sites I ran never comingled revenue goals with content moderation and they still enshittified.

Re: How Quora died

#425

Post by seadan83 »

HillRat wrote: post #227
seadan83 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting reference. Non profits cannot hoard money. I believe it becomes taxable and they can lose their non profit status (i am not an expert) Though, hoarding seems like a mischaracterization. Per the article linked, the cash burn rate is on the order of $100M/yr, having $150M in the bank is 18 months worth of funding. The biggest gripe I read in the article is the "high" expenditure rate and how necessary it is…

There are no limits on a nonprofit's ability to raise and maintain cash reserves; there are limits on how and to whom funds can be disbursed and (to a lesser extent) the kinds of activities that can be used to generate funds. But a nonprofit can sit on an endlessly-growing hoard of cash if that's what they (and their donors) want to do.

HAHA, apparently my comment is the number 1 result from google to the question: "can a nonprofit hoard cash", and the answer quotes me from this very thread with "Non profits cannot hoard money"

I believe I was likely incorrect and you are correct here @HillRat. The nuance where I was incorrect was if the nonprofit fails to properly pay taxes on unrelated activities - in which case the government can decide that entity is a for-profit entity. This link was helpful for me for that clarification: https://www.findlaw.com/smallbusiness/incorporation-and-lega...

I recall this being an issue for an HOA which wound up collecting more than it needed and there was concern that (A) it would be taxed & (B) nonprofit status would be lost. Paying taxes correctly is very important, but does not speak to a non-profits ability to hoard cash. My earlier comment is incorrect, I apologize for the bad information.

Re: How Quora died

#426

Post by seadan83 »

lupire wrote: post #198
seadan83 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting reference. Non profits cannot hoard money. I believe it becomes taxable and they can lose their non profit status (i am not an expert) Though, hoarding seems like a mischaracterization. Per the article linked, the cash burn rate is on the order of $100M/yr, having $150M in the bank is 18 months worth of funding. The biggest gripe I read in the article is the "high" expenditure rate and how necessary it is…

Citation needed for your claim about hoarding money, which is refuted by simple observation of the many, many endowments that exist.

I was confused about another situation - I was quite sure about this - and was incorrect. This speaks to the benefits of speaking from data and not just what you think the data was. Thank you for calling me out here, it was merited and the info was bad.

Re: How Quora died

#427

Post by xp84 »

bastawhiz wrote: post #315

I was a top writer for two years (and got a pretty sweet jacket out of it). I was a multiple knowledge prize winner for my answers (which paid out enough for me to report it on my taxes!). Here's the nugget from the article that's the core reason: > that “was all about trying to come up with questions that would draw in more views and more people,” she said—not about incentivizing high-quality answers. It was all abo…

While I was never prominent or award-winning there, I used to contribute a lot of answers. I always hated the “Real name policy” though, because it meant you had to carefully censor yourself. You could only say things you’d be unconcerned to have printed and stapled to your resume for every job interview you ever went to.

But after having posted a lot of content in spite of that, something made me so irritated with the site and the community that I literally deleted each thing I had ever posted and walked away. What you describe is even more lame though, for sure.

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