The downfall of Quora (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#61

Post by vidarh » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 5:40 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #26

dgreensp wrote: post #23

I'm acquainted with the founders of Quora, and I don't think making "fast money" was a primary motivation in founding Quora. They set out to create a question/answer site with a better user experience and a better community. The business model seems, from the outside, to be the belief that, like Facebook and Twitter, they will make money somehow eventually after becoming a runaway success, even it takes years to mone…

They set out to create a question/answer site with a better user experience and a better community. Their user interface choices always looked seriously weird to anyone familiar with almost any other website. It's beyond annoying to me to see a Quora link shared by friends (and actually quite rare for me to see a Quora link shared by anyone), because I never know if I will be able to read the Quora thread without log…

For that reason I've largely developed "Quora blindness". The same way I just mentally skip over ads on a page, I'll mentally discount links to Quora as non-existent.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#62

Post by minimaxir » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 5:40 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #3

From the article kindly submitted here: "Quora's philosophy can be summed up as why should the serfs get a share if they were dumb enough to work for free in the first place?" That's a good question. What is the incentive to be a content creator on Quora? AFTER EDIT: Aside about the other comments wondering if Hacker News has a no-humor rule. I find comments from time to time on Hacker News that are laugh-out-loud fu…

Humor on Hacker News is possible, it just has to be constructive humor that expands the discussion. (such as hilariously point out flaws).

An example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8140290

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#63

Post by minimaxir » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 5:42 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #2

This struck me as more representative of other sites. Like, the one we're on now: The No Humor Rule: Humor is a de facto taboo on Quora. While the occasional demonstration of witwill evoke no more than a scowl and shake of the head from the community, more regular use will draw a barrage of down votes and risk the possibility of banishment. The staff attempts to deny that this istrue but fails to convince anyone. Man…

A trend I've noticed among Quora posts that attempt to be funny is that they are bad at doing it, such as using Reddit-level responses contained with puns/memes. That type of "humor" died years ago.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#64

Post by leovan » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

rustyconover wrote: post #45

leovan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is an intriguing criticism but assumes a corrupted reputation economy. wouldn't a perfect meritocracy be a reputation based economy?

A meritocracy is a type of government not an economy. Or possibly I don't understand your question.

a meritocracy is a resource allocation system and functionally equivalent to an economy for considering your proposition that reputation based systems lead to bad allocations; i'm questioning that proposition.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#65

Post by avn2109 » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 5:49 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #50

dozenal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stackoverflow has of a lot of terrible answers that get voted up by people who aren't equipped to evaluate them properly, and closed threads when anyone starts actual substantive discussions. It also suffers from lack of decent rewards for contribution. That's not what I would consider a good community.

Stack Overflow could be better net citizens if they'd stop polluting Google's search results with closed discussions. They're welcome to set whatever rules they want for what's "on topic" or a "good fit". Their site, their rules. No harm, no foul. It's just irritating as hell to waste your time clicking over there from a Google link and finding a closed discussion at the other end. Telling Google to not index a topic…

Well, very often I will click through to SO from Google to a closed thread that got downmodded like crazy, but that nevertheless exactly solves my problem in less than a minute from the first answer.

Perhaps on some level SO knows this, and also knows that their mods are perhaps somewhat overzealous, and therefore has adopted the current state of affairs as a sort of compromise/duct-tape solution.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#66

Post by swartkrans » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 5:54 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #46

This piece starts out teasing some kind of business or market analysis about Quora, which would be interesting to read, but it almost immediately descends completely and permanently into Drama, some of which seems like it's only really intelligible to people who spend a lot of time on Quora. It's not a worthwhile read, and we'd be better off discussing Quora based on virtually any other story about it.

I noticed you get unwarrantedly defensive when it comes to negativity surrounding popular individuals or well-known companies. I say unwarrantedly because you usually write very awesome posts with lots of detail, but when you spring to the defense of the GitHub founder who fell from grace, or in this case Quora (and there are other instances I remember to some degree), you peremptorily want to end the discussion without any good reason and just issue some dismissive insults.

It never works, though. The conversations continue. People have good reason to not like Quora. They've had a user-unfriendly attitude problem, and they've been less than nice to their employees as well. I personally can't stand it when some people are treated with contempt, but I guess this sort of thing doesn't bother you or maybe you don't pick up on it.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#67

Post by imanaccount247 » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 6:00 PM UTC

lauraura wrote: post #48

pinaceae wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ego. just like wikipedia it runs on the precious recource called 'mansplaining'. men really like to show off. just like this comment.

Mansplaining is much more specific than men showing off; it's men assuming women are clueless and talking over them (e.g. the prototypical case where a man explained a woman's book to her, oblivious that she wrote it). Which I don't think is the issue here at all...

The benefit of making up words to dismiss people is that you get to make up the definitions too. "Mansplaining" means whatever is convenient at the time. This is why it is preferable to use real words and ignore people who make up nonsense words.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#68

Post by grimlck » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 6:00 PM UTC

dgreensp wrote: post #23

I'm acquainted with the founders of Quora, and I don't think making "fast money" was a primary motivation in founding Quora. They set out to create a question/answer site with a better user experience and a better community. The business model seems, from the outside, to be the belief that, like Facebook and Twitter, they will make money somehow eventually after becoming a runaway success, even it takes years to mone…

Actions speak louder than words, and I don't see how requiring logins to view answers results in a better user experience and community.

I would guess that since it is socially uncouth to say their motivation for the site is to try to make a lot of money, they instead state a more noble sounding mission whenever asked about motivations.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#69

Post by cloakandswagger » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 6:03 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #46

This piece starts out teasing some kind of business or market analysis about Quora, which would be interesting to read, but it almost immediately descends completely and permanently into Drama, some of which seems like it's only really intelligible to people who spend a lot of time on Quora. It's not a worthwhile read, and we'd be better off discussing Quora based on virtually any other story about it.

That's because Quora is a social platform, and it's flaws are primarily cultural.

You may or may not be able to make a legitimate business case for the site, but the point is that Quora will still fail due to its toxic, insipid culture.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#70

Post by quadrangle » Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 6:05 PM UTC

Wait, Quora is actually a thing? People actually have content there? I've only visited a couple times and saw that I couldn't access anything. I assumed that the answers didn't really exist, and it was just a scammy thing to get you hooked in. Kinda like how a site might use some popular keyword but the actual content isn't helpful at all.

Who the heck are these people that actually use it? Why??