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Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

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Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#121

Post by wilfra »

jcc80 wrote: post #107
wilfra wrote: post #7

I've learned to go with the flow and trust them when they make changes like this. My first impression is usually to want the 'old Quora' back but once I get used to them, the changes do nearly always improve the experience. I would imagine this will be the same. They are very skilled at interpreting needs and desires we didn't know we had and quickly correcting themselves the times they do make mistakes (like the rec…

very skilled at interpreting needs and desires we didn't know we had This is basically the same line that I use when I'm mocking targeted ads and joking around with friends about how thankful they should be for them. If your edit wasn't there I would have guessed this was a level aka fooling someone w/ sarcasm or non-serious remark.

It's also the same line people use when they describe why Steve Jobs was so brilliant.

There is a difference, however, in explaining away unpopular changes as being this and actually being good at it. Quora is actually good at it.

Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#123

Post by markkat »

chimi wrote: post #103

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but Quora users are the product, not the customer. Quora wants to make money and they can make more of it by showing everyone who is looking at what. If they can go to advertisers and say, "See, we know every single question people are interested in, so you can get better value out of your clicks! We show this information to everyone, so we have no problem letting you tai…

It's more than just creating content, it's communication. Quora's end of the bargain was to maintain a quality platform for the exchange of ideas.

I never got pass the real name policy.

I think a mistake is that these services are either built without a clear development strategy, or the development strategy doesn't jive with what the users expect from the early growth phase.

Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#124

Post by paulsilver »

0x0 wrote: post #69
cantrevealname wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see missing or blurred text in your example, http://www.quora.com/Bayesian-Inference/How-do-Bayesian-algo... I checked with two different browsers (Opera and Firefox under Windows). Could this mean that the Quora PR machine is up in full swing trying to undo damage (at least in the case of specific links that people cite)?

Did you scroll all the way down? Still blurry here: http://imgur.com/Bbifs (on google chrome) Although I see in the html source there are some html comments "googleoff". I've never heard of those before. I guess "googleon"'ing the first answer is enough to get google juice while staying within the letter of rules, it's still really spammy. (Plus, how does that play with other search engines?)

I can't see those in the HTML, whether I'm logged in or not, but I have used googleoff & googleon in HTML comments before - they're used to control which parts of a page can be ignored when using a Google Search Appliance.

So, if Quora use a GSA (or rack of them) to power their site search, they can ensure parts of the page aren't added to the index of the search. This can be helpful if you want to exclude areas that are repeated a lot in the site but are not helpful if you are searching, like navigation or help panels.

(Quick edit) googleoff/googleon are completely ignored by normal Google, AFAIK it's only used for their Appliance products.

Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#125

Post by seunosewa »

Lewton wrote: post #89
JonnieCache wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Does someone at Quora or Facebook manually scan new account names? At facebook they certainly do. When you change your name you have to wait for some period of time before it gets approved by a human. The person doing it doesn't seem to give a shit though. It is the fashion amongst a certain sector of the youth to use utterly ludicrous pseudonyms on FB - most of my friends do. I would love to quote some of them here…

I suspect the wait time for changing names on facebook are there to give the illusion that a real human looks at it. AFAIK if you try to change your name to something obviously fake, like "Superman", it will reject it immediately

It's likely that the system is setup to reject obviously wrong names instantly to save the manual reviewers' time.

Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#126

Post by vijayr »

One thing I can't understand with this "real name" stuff - why can't sites like quora charge a one time fee, like Metafilter? When people pay real money, you know who they are, they are less likely to troll, no? This has been successful with Metafilter, why can't other sites copy this? It'll also be another (small) source of revenue

Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#127

Post by crpatino »

Jacqued wrote: post #32
waterlesscloud wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it will spread too much. Nothing would kill Facebook quicker than then implementing this, for example.

Agreed. I'm on the verge of leaving facebook, I've been for quite some time. Their stupid change in chat (people know when you read what they wrote) almost made me quit, but Chrome extensions to disable it allowed me to stay. With such a move, I would not stay one day longer on the "service".

It's boiled frogs all the way down!

Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#128

Post by irahul »

bobds wrote: post #109
irahul wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only does this shit fly but Google are doing it on their own websites. I am not claiming Google is benevolent. As I mentioned above, if a user searches for "rails select in query" and the user clicks on experts-exchange result summary showing partial answer only to be taken to the page where answers are hidden, the user failed to find something on Google. May be he will blame experts-exchange, but he will blame…

I just want to point out that search results like Quora or Experts-exchange, are definitely not going away. Some websites might be penalized here and there but I haven't seen any consistent efforts to stop them. In fact, Google wants even more such results. See First Click Free: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38... Oh and here are 240 million login-walled pages: https://www.google.com/searc…

> In fact, Google wants even more such results. See First Click Free: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38....

Google wants to index as much content as possible. It's providing incentive to content owners to let Google index it. As pointed out by another commenter, clicking on the search result summary shows that document in full. It's only the subsequent clicks that can be paywalled.

> Oh and here are 240 million login-walled pages: https://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:groups.google.com/grou....

Is it asking to sign in? I tried in incognito mode and I could read the groups just fine.

Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#129

Post by wyclif »

This is bad, bad juju on Quora's part. The Facebookisation of Quora is something that makes my Spidey sense go off as well. Forcing "real" names. Forcing reads into the public without warning. Lots of "hey, we're the coolest social startup on the block."

Quora is overrated. They need to get it together, dial down the hype, and show some freaking humility. To do that they'll need to stop abusing the users they have.

Re: Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

#130

Post by wyclif »

This is bad, bad juju on Quora's part. The Facebookisation of Quora is something that makes my Spidey sense go off as well. Forcing "real" names. Forcing reads into the public without warning. Lots of "hey, we're the coolest social startup on the block."

Quora is overrated and needs to get it together and stop abusing the users it has.

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