Quora pays thousands for posting questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#101

Post by manigandham » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:12 AM UTC

codezero wrote: post #89

randomacct3847 wrote: post #49

I wonder what motivates Adam D’Angelo to keep on as founder and CEO after 10 years of running Quora. Here is someone who got rich off FB and could do anything. Maybe early on that “anything” was Quora but I really can’t believe that what Quora is now is anything close to what he envisioned when he first started the site. At this point it feels like a Zombie co that keeps chugging along because it has no other choice…

Have you thought about this a lot? Quora is Adam's baby. He owns most of it and has been involved as a primary investor for... I'm not sure how long. Before that he was CTO of Facebook and an early investor in Instagram. He's made immense returns on these investments. I don't have numbers, but I would bet money he could buy back Quora from investors with cash and still be a several-hundred-millionaire. With that said…

Having so much success though can also mean that you don't have as much drive to make a great product because you're already set. Not that it must be the case here, but passion is hard to maintain when it doesn't really have much effect on your life.

Also, if the site can be run completely independently (and it looks like operational costs are rather low) then why even take VC in the first place? Surely the effects of hundreds of millions requiring a return could easily be predicted as eventually causing problems?

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#102

Post by manigandham » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:14 AM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #92

manigandham wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people will do anything for even trivial amounts of money while upvotes are controlled by users which is self-correcting when the community and controls are well managed.

I’m proposing leaving the upvotes in the hands of users but paying users for high karma

Sure, but the overall point is that as soon as you introduce money people will spend inordinate amounts of time to game the system. Paying for high scores will mean people doing anything they can to get upvotes unethically that will eventually hurt the community, similar to what's happening on Quora right now.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#103

Post by daveFNbuck » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:17 AM UTC

nikkwong wrote: post #62

manigandham wrote: post #5

$27k for 8000 questions, that's basically admitting they paid for spam. I don't see how this is a good product decision at all and the content quality has declined severely. Meanwhile being a Top Writer has done nothing for me other than getting the opportunity to buy quora branded swag from their store. Saying that this system is imbalanced and unfair seems to be an understatement.

The mind blowing fact is that they're advertising this metric as if it's a stat to be proud of. I think the average person browsing the internet would see this and instantly question the site's credibility. I would maybe understand this statistic being shared internally or in an email to partners--but published publicly on the internet? They're just looking to invite criticism and a loss of trust.

They linked me to a similar document when I was asked to join the partner program. It's not a very encouraging stat.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#104

Post by manigandham » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:20 AM UTC

codezero wrote: post #86

notacoward wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost every question turns into blatant and unhelpful pitches for the responder's startup. They break all of their own rules for the sake of clicks. I was a Top Writer there for two years. I finally got sick of trying to write informative high-quality answers only to see them buried beneath flippant image-heavy crap (rules violation #1) that didn't even get one tenth as many upvotes (rules violation #2). Then they…

I helped write a bunch of Quora's rules and policies, and I also helped create the Top Writer's program. I probably hand selected you in the first two years. I left Quora in 2014, but your first statement feels very true to me. I can't say what they did after I left, but I saw a clear willingness to have a fuzzy interpretation of the rules for power users. There was a time when Quora would bend over backwards to have…

I think it's what they're breaking rules for that makes all the difference. Helping a few writers that pump out amazing content seems to benefit everyone and is worth it if there are tight controls on exactly what's allowed.

Right now the system seems to be breaking rules that hurt writers and readers alike, with no discernible benefit other than creating tons of ad inventory and SEO inbound traffic.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#105

Post by polpo » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:24 AM UTC

dmoy wrote: post #72

notacoward wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost every question turns into blatant and unhelpful pitches for the responder's startup. They break all of their own rules for the sake of clicks. I was a Top Writer there for two years. I finally got sick of trying to write informative high-quality answers only to see them buried beneath flippant image-heavy crap (rules violation #1) that didn't even get one tenth as many upvotes (rules violation #2). Then they…

Do you know of any good replacement sites? (If you were to answer longform somewhere now, where would it be?)

Ask MetaFilter: https://ask.metafilter.com/ It costs $5 to get an account that lets you ask or answer, and they have paid moderation staff that keep answers on-topic and high quality. The signal-to-noise ratio is quite high.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#106

Post by julienreszka » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 4:54 AM UTC

arduinomancer wrote: post #54

Two comments: 1) Why wouldn’t the people answering the questions get that money? Aren’t they the ones adding value to the site? 2) I’ve noticed a ton of spam answers recently where the answer is just a link to another site, didn’t used to happen like 2 years ago

Turns out good questions are sometimes more valuable than good answers

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#107

Post by atulatul » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:18 AM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #6

What happened to Quora anyway? When it started I recall it being super hot with crazy high quality answers. Then they started with logins being required and it all seemed to go downhill at an amazing speed.

I think it became more about users and less about content. What was your first crush? What was the most scary film you watched? these kind of questions are more about users and users having a forum than about knowledge.

Fact based, impartial content by people knowledgeable about the topic gave way to perception based/ meme worthy answers and later on to questions as well.

Also I agree with a couple of comments here which site India/ users from India as a factor. (Particularly around 2014 election and later).

And I think later on Quora did not have a choice but to go with the flow.

(I know this comment is also a bit generalization and perception based. :))

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#108

Post by faitswulff » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:31 AM UTC

Aside, but I get all my Q&A jollies from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ these days. The moderation is unparalleled and the questions as well as the answers are interesting. There will be unanswered questions, which is frustrating, but the quality remains high.

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#109

Post by snr » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:47 AM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #12

madamelic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What happened to Quora anyway? It became marketing. Almost every question turns into blatant and unhelpful pitches for the responder's startup. Same with Medium. Once the startup bros say a site is good for "native marketing", that's when the begins to die.

> Almost every question turns into blatant and unhelpful pitches for the responder's startup. They break all of their own rules for the sake of clicks. I was a Top Writer there for two years. I finally got sick of trying to write informative high-quality answers only to see them buried beneath flippant image-heavy crap (rules violation #1) that didn't even get one tenth as many upvotes (rules violation #2). Then they…

This. I reported a "famous" author multiple times for violating a bunch of rules and I was retaliated against and my write/update 'privileges' suspended. Well, flunk you too, Quora.

Not to mention, the abundance of dirt quality content and insincere questions (and answers)

Re: Quora pays thousands for posting questions

#110

Post by nickpsecurity » Sun, Dec 23, 2018, 5:51 AM UTC

james_s_tayler wrote: post #85

anigbrowl wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people pay something for their communications in the form of home internet or cell service, so I don't think the answer is just nested paywalls or the internet would be more polite than it is.

I think you miss my point slightly but in your defense I didn't make it very well. That people pay for the internet connection doesn't really have much effect on the economics. It's the payment for the production of the information or lack thereof that is driving the deleterious effects on quality of information that we are seeing. This is mostly of our choosing too! And we will continue to put up with it until we do…

Good points. Add Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy to the list of ways things can be better:

https://qz.com/480741/this-free-online-encyclopedia-has-achi...

I thought that sort of thing might be copied by more educators on more topics. Same non-profit or public-benefit corporation might run them all with some charter, license, and/or contract maximizing the availability while still making money to support content updates. Could be many doing this sort of thing.