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Quora in the next YC batch

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#181

Post by collyw »

meritt wrote: post #90
adventured wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stack Exchange owns the question & answer niche? I don't hardly think so. Yahoo Answers, as bad as it is, is massive, and shows up throughout Google's top results; ditto answers.com; and Quora is a top 500 site. Stack has seven sites getting at least 100,000 visits per day. One is a break out homerun (Stack Overflow obviously), and it drastically dwarfs the other sites. All but a few of their top 20+ sites are strict…

Fair points. Quora though seems pretty well aimed at the same subcategories which Stack Exchange excels.

To me Quora excels at the areas where Stack Exchange fails miserably. Intelligent discussion over a subject (rather than "closed as not constructive").

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#182

Post by collyw »

cookiecaper wrote: post #153
adventured wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stack Exchange owns the question & answer niche? I don't hardly think so. Yahoo Answers, as bad as it is, is massive, and shows up throughout Google's top results; ditto answers.com; and Quora is a top 500 site. Stack has seven sites getting at least 100,000 visits per day. One is a break out homerun (Stack Overflow obviously), and it drastically dwarfs the other sites. All but a few of their top 20+ sites are strict…

Consider that Quora is almost exactly like Yahoo! Answers, except that it has a more professional color scheme.

The quality of the answers is way higher. I don't know what to attribute that to.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#183

Post by jfoster »

cookiecaper wrote: post #152
jfoster wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use Quora very much, but I have noticed that it seems to be very focused on the identity of the person replying, and even the identity of upvoters. It feels like a great place for senior management in organisations to answer questions about topics related to their roles.

Eh, I dunno. I think it creates an egotistic atmosphere that creates problems for both participants and moderators. Someone is much less likely to admit they were wrong or let something go when their professional headshot, real name, and high-powered corporate position is next to it. They reply because they think they get it, find out they were wrong, but feel they risk embarrassment for themselves and their employer…

I'm not sure there are right and wrong answers to the vast majority of Quora questions. They tend to be about topics where two different people might give extremely different answers.

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#184

Post by joshdance »

seanalltogether wrote: post #48
joshdance wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most normal people won't know how to do this.

And the rest of us will forget 10 minutes from now. I really don't understand why people give quora a free pass on this when expertsexchange was nuked by the rest of the online community for inventing these tactics.

Off topic but every time I see ExpertsExchange not capitalized I almost do a double take. :)

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#185

Post by cookiecaper »

jfoster wrote: post #183
cookiecaper wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I dunno. I think it creates an egotistic atmosphere that creates problems for both participants and moderators. Someone is much less likely to admit they were wrong or let something go when their professional headshot, real name, and high-powered corporate position is next to it. They reply because they think they get it, find out they were wrong, but feel they risk embarrassment for themselves and their employer…

I'm not sure there are right and wrong answers to the vast majority of Quora questions. They tend to be about topics where two different people might give extremely different answers.

I agree that that Quora questions are largely subjective, but many are subjective topics that demand accurate conception of prerequisites to answer effectively. I've personally cringe-worthy threads on Quora where a pseudo-technical executive gives a misconceived response to such a question (that is, not providing an unpopular answer, but providing an answer that is not actually relevant to the question) and proceeds to attempt to defend it, sometimes even falling back on "Well, if I was wrong, I wouldn't be the CXO at BigCorp".

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#187

Post by gbog »

beagle3 wrote: post #133
rokhayakebe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 20 million programmers in the world, that is the maximum S.O. can get. There are billions of people looking for just the type of answers you find on Quora. Also you go to S.O. to find a specific answer than move on, on Q you stick around and read other stuff, go back for discovery. I am not saying which one is more valuable, perhaps S.O. is more monetizable.

That's a strawman. Don't compare Quora to Stack Overflow (which is, indeed, limited to programmers). Look at the entire Stack Exchange network.

Or Wikipedia?

Re: Quora in the next YC batch

#188

Post by gbog »

Alex_MJ wrote: post #78
russell_h wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really have to visit the site, the emails only contain snippets of conversation. That being said, the emails are brilliant. I don't know how the content is selected, but almost every time I open one I see something eye-catching enough that I click through.

Yeah - I second that. Quora is one of the few sites that sends me weeklyish emails that I haven't unsubscribed from because the content is fantastic. I always seem to learn something from clicking through it. It's kind of a bummer that they're needing to pivot and find a way to revenue - from a non-business, purely consumer perspective I find the site really enlightening and valuable.

Well not feeling the same. At first it was ok but now in the mails I get the 50 answer to "what are good advices for a good life?" And the nth reply on topic China by a user who regurgitates the western party line that I know already, in the same time and depth that you'd have in a newbie backpacker bar near the most spoiled tourist spot in Thailand.
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