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I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

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Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#202
I will admit my bias: paying NYT subscriber, here.

The article has two main issues:

Nagging to install an app: yes, I hate this also. Quota, Techcrunch, etc. have been pretty bad about this.

NYT trying to pay for 300+ staff: reasonable. I sometimes use their app and sometime just use the email news summary they send me every morning. Works well for me.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#203
bth, i have no idea how Quora achieves anything. The service is kind of okay I guess, but I was thoroughly turned off by my first visit. I got to read one answer 'for free'... I cant remember what the price was I had to pay but 'far too much' is how I remember it.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, I'm more likely to fiddle about with chrome's inspector to try to remove just the right divs to get a quora page to be readable than to spend however long it takes to sign up. It's personally grating to me that they take such a boneheaded tack to content in the 21st century. Did they learn nothing from expertsexchange? It grates even more that they are putting crowd sourced content behind a wall.

Personally I don't do that. Unlike many technical people, I don't have AdBlock installed either. Giving a service attention and eyeballs in this day and age is like giving them money. It's actually worse, because you're the product and so they don't treat you like you're the customer. Even if they don't get money from you, even if you're using AdBlock, even if you are totally immune to advertising or any other means…

I don't use Quora either but it's annoying when it comes up in a search when I need some help. I cannot wait for Google to fix their blacklist so I can add it to the list with experts exchange. (Before anyone mentions it, yes I know you can still get to the page to add urls to the list but it doesn't work, try it out.)

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#205
post #53

Interesting. Such tricks is exactly why Stack Overflow originally went against Expert Exchange, promising never to hide user-contributed content, and explicitly licensing it as Creative Commons. Quora is its content. Its content is user contributed. Hiding such content from other users is just plain evil.

StackOverflow does modify user-contributed content and have very serious moderators issues. Which is why I'm sure there's going to be something new coming along one of these days: something where users are in control of what they post (e.g. not a wiki unless the user who did post does accept himself others' edits). Collaborating to answer questions is fine. But modifying and closing questions artificially (due to ver…

And these are all laid out in front in their footer, the FAQ and About page.

You know what you're getting into when you post on a Stack Exchange site. If you don't like it, then you're okay to not use it.

Not like when you post on Quora. Do they tell you that your answers will be blurred and hidden behind a login-wall?

But really, the best programming joke hidden in source code is nothing more than noise. There are other places for that. When you want to cram that into Stack Overflow, then you'll have problems with its moderation.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#206
post #49

I think Adam's mistake here is to go too much by the numbers. He presumably has numbers that show that Quora ends up net ahead if they force people to create accounts to read answers. He grew Facebook very effectively by following the numbers. But he may not realize how different this case is from Facebook's. It may well be that for a site like Quora, at this stage in its life, users are not all equal. It may be a mi…

I created a "test" Facebook account which I use for Quora sign in and many other sites. Works like a charm!

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#207
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their content? I don't think even Quora would claim that. And how exactly is creating an account taking off one's shoes before entering? I would not be contributing anything to the Quora community by creating an account. I'm not depriving the community of anything by not creating one. I believe the reason Quora tries to force people to create accounts is not because this helps the community, but simply because this i…

I think we both agree on why Quora does this (viral spread mechanism, juicing numbers, etc). That's besides the point. When we are guests in someone else's home, seems only fair that we honor their requests. Asking you to simply create an account shouldn't be such a massive chore. I believe this attitude is dangerous for our community. I fear for what happens when we ask you to pay.

> When we are guests in someone else's home, seems only fair that we honor their requests.

This is a ridiculous analogy. It's not a home, it's a business. If my friends want me to take my shoes off when I visit them, no big deal. If Best Buy does, that's frigging insane.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#208
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their content? I don't think even Quora would claim that. And how exactly is creating an account taking off one's shoes before entering? I would not be contributing anything to the Quora community by creating an account. I'm not depriving the community of anything by not creating one. I believe the reason Quora tries to force people to create accounts is not because this helps the community, but simply because this i…

I think we both agree on why Quora does this (viral spread mechanism, juicing numbers, etc). That's besides the point. When we are guests in someone else's home, seems only fair that we honor their requests. Asking you to simply create an account shouldn't be such a massive chore. I believe this attitude is dangerous for our community. I fear for what happens when we ask you to pay.

> When we are guests in someone else's home, seems only fair that we honor their requests. Asking you to simply create an account shouldn't be such a massive chore.

Or we can choose not to enter at all. They aren't asking us to just create an account, but to download an android/iphone App.

Re: I'd like to use the web my way, thank you very much Quora

#209
I have no issue with quora wanting you to sign up to use their site but to allow their pages to be indexed by search engines and then hide content on those pages to humans unless they sign up (with their "real name') is ridiculous. With $61 million, you would think that they could hire someone to tell them that this is a bad idea.

I too have been trained to avoid quora search results.

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