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The downfall of Quora (2013)

thegoodones.quora.com

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Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#81

Post by fredsted »

I kind of feel these sites - Yahoo Answers, Quora - are just serving users not wanting to Google things.

Everyone has questions. Questions can be googled.

Granted, Googling stuff is hard.

Even though you can just stick a question into Google and get some reasonable feedback, it's still hard to know who to trust: I read most students have no clue on what to trust when googling for school assignments. It's not taught there, they're just expected to know. And it's one of those things that is crucial to fully understand things in the society of today.

Of course, people want definitive answers. If there's a definitive answer for something, it's probably in a place like wikipedia.

For something that doesn't have a definitive answer and which can be discussed, there's discussion forums like reddit and HN that a great for this purpose.

In my mind, Quora solves very little, and the way they force you to login really irks me – information should be free. (Just make it publicly accessible already! Make dumps and APIs available like wikipedia. Make it free!) And then there's all the other issues the author describes in this article, especially the inane questions.

I have to say, lots of interesting discussions have happened on Quora - mainly due to the participation of interesting people, not random 13-year olds. That's still a huge accomplishment and why I hope Quora sticks around, but more in form of a general discussion/opinion/experience platform.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#82

Post by eropple »

troymc wrote: post #74
tejon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As others have noted here I think the web could use an improved version of "Yahoo Answers"; something with a StackOverflow feel. It's odd that nothing fills this gap. Slant.co comes close, but is built around "what" rather than "why" or "how" -- useful in its own right, but not the same. I wonder if the problem is simply that Yahoo! Questions, Ask.com and Quora are all just too well-known and nobody wants to take t…

What about all the Stack Exchange communities (e.g. Mathematics Stack Exchange, English Language & Usage Stack Exchange)?

Personally, while I like some aspects of the community stuff around the different Stack Exchange sites, I feel like there's a lot of friction around a user jumping from one to another. It sort of feels weird, you know?

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#83

Post by [deleted] »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #78
bronbron wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I noticed you get unwarrantedly defensive Uhh I don't think he was defensive at all. I think he made a very good point. I would bet large amounts of bitcoins that no VC wrote any of this, save MAYBE part of the opening. It's extremely verbose and the business analysis ultimately is a smaller part of what amounts to just a rant about the quora community. And if you want to read that, that's great. I don't. I've read…

The community is typically a pretty big aspect of a business running a community answers site. Would you have been satisfied if there was a pie chart?

[deleted]

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#84

Post by bronbron »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #78
bronbron wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I noticed you get unwarrantedly defensive Uhh I don't think he was defensive at all. I think he made a very good point. I would bet large amounts of bitcoins that no VC wrote any of this, save MAYBE part of the opening. It's extremely verbose and the business analysis ultimately is a smaller part of what amounts to just a rant about the quora community. And if you want to read that, that's great. I don't. I've read…

The community is typically a pretty big aspect of a business running a community answers site. Would you have been satisfied if there was a pie chart?

> The community is typically a pretty big aspect of a business

'The community' is an extremely nebulous term, and unlikely to be influencing any business decision, largely because any individual's perception of the community is heavily subjective and influenced by the subject of the content you consume (which can vary widely on any large, similarly nebulous site).

I highly, highly doubt 'the community' came up in any acquisition discussions of reddit or tumblr, largely for that reason and because it ultimately has little effect on their user base. People aren't leaving reddit in droves because SRS exists. If people leave quora, it won't be because 'rad fems' drove them away.

> Would you have been satisfied if there was a pie chart?

You're super cool. Wicked jab there bro. Super salty about it. Remind me to high five you next time and we can pound some natty ice and talk about how cool you are.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#85

Post by DanBC »

eropple wrote: post #82
troymc wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about all the Stack Exchange communities (e.g. Mathematics Stack Exchange, English Language & Usage Stack Exchange)?

Personally, while I like some aspects of the community stuff around the different Stack Exchange sites, I feel like there's a lot of friction around a user jumping from one to another. It sort of feels weird, you know?

There are very different cultures on the different stack exchanges. I used to think it was a mistake to allow individual sites to have so much control over appearance, but now that acts as a useful cue that you're on a different website with different rules.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#86

Post by protonfish »

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…

I agree the rules for quality content over nonsense at HN have been widely overshot. I wish comments and submissions were judged on value alone - interesting ideas, new facts, entertaining reading - irrespective of content including some silliness or even gasp potty-language.

I have been criticized and downvoted many times for being "snarky" even if I made a factual and well-reasoned comment. This is the goddamn Internet, not tea with the fucking queen. I'd prefer a community that values substance over style and passion over politeness. (Not like there is anything better than HN and I just got downvoting privileges so I am not going anywhere for a long time. Bwa ha ha ha!)

And I get it, I can be a real dick. Ask anyone. I don't blame anyone for being mad at me occasionally but I wish others would have enough tolerance to get over their delicate feelings enough to appreciate content that does not jibe with their own self-delusions or is written with uncomfortable emotion.

I am feeling a little burned by this today. This morning I clicked a link off the home page to read a rant by weev against people bashing bash and Stallman. Reading that felt like letting loose a fart built up after a long job interview. It was a joy to read something so frank and passionate whether I agree with it or not. (And in this case he made some excellent points.) It made me realize how stuffy and afraid of breaking consensus everything else on HN was. I hit my back button to comment and it was no longer anywhere to be found.

Shame on you, HN.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#87

Post by adventured »

tejon wrote: post #56
jbinto wrote: post #44

I mentally blacklisted Quora when it was proudly US only (I'm Canadian). Their reasoning was extremely dubious: something about "cultural differences" and "language barriers" preventing "high quality content". Foolishly, I gave them another chance when they opened registration worldwide. The second strike was when I found out that they showed the Googlebot different content, à la Experts Exchange. And the third strik…

> As others have noted here I think the web could use an improved version of "Yahoo Answers"; something with a StackOverflow feel. It's odd that nothing fills this gap. Slant.co comes close, but is built around "what" rather than "why" or "how" -- useful in its own right, but not the same. I wonder if the problem is simply that Yahoo! Questions, Ask.com and Quora are all just too well-known and nobody wants to take t…

It's essentially impossible to build something as high-quality as Stack Overflow for an all-purpose Q&A site. The expertise required per category is incredibly high, to match the level of quality Stack has, and then the moderation has to be equally up to that bar. That has to occur for a thousand different categories (far more really, but you get the point).

So you need tons of users per sub, with very high level expertise; you need dedicated moderators with expertise in the category so they grasp what's what. And you need some way to bring all of these people in just to get the ball rolling (Stack did it by knocking over one category first of course).

Even Stack Exchange has failed to translate its very successful core site to a vast range of topics. If you look at where they've succeeded in a big way, it's exclusively tech-heavy or otherwise topics that geeks like.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#88

Post by booruguru »

junto wrote: post #35

Quota. ?share=whatever That to me sums up the site in its entirety. A content SEO Google cheater that tries to con people into signing up to boost its user numbers They should have looked to StackOverflow as a good example of how you build a proper community, and more importantly, nurture it. Good ridance.

> StackOverflow

StackOverflow's community is toxic waste compared to Quora. The site is somehow successful despite the founders/community's best efforts to destroy it.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#89

Post by richardw »

adventured wrote: post #87
tejon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As others have noted here I think the web could use an improved version of "Yahoo Answers"; something with a StackOverflow feel. It's odd that nothing fills this gap. Slant.co comes close, but is built around "what" rather than "why" or "how" -- useful in its own right, but not the same. I wonder if the problem is simply that Yahoo! Questions, Ask.com and Quora are all just too well-known and nobody wants to take t…

It's essentially impossible to build something as high-quality as Stack Overflow for an all-purpose Q&A site. The expertise required per category is incredibly high, to match the level of quality Stack has, and then the moderation has to be equally up to that bar. That has to occur for a thousand different categories (far more really, but you get the point). So you need tons of users per sub, with very high level exp…

I think Wikipedia has managed to be hugely general with a relatively high quality level so it must be possible. There might well be an underlying difference that can't be overcome but I can't see it from here.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#90

Post by ecspike »

jbinto wrote: post #44

I mentally blacklisted Quora when it was proudly US only (I'm Canadian). Their reasoning was extremely dubious: something about "cultural differences" and "language barriers" preventing "high quality content". Foolishly, I gave them another chance when they opened registration worldwide. The second strike was when I found out that they showed the Googlebot different content, à la Experts Exchange. And the third strik…

I mentally blocked it when started becoming a sea of "Why did this H-list programming celebrity join X company?"
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