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The downfall of Quora (2013)

thegoodones.quora.com

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Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#111

Post by kelukelugames »

aroch wrote: post #49
kelukelugames wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is about sites using the natural trait of men, especially the nerdy types, to get immense joy of being right. I believe this trait is true, but the word mansplaining is loaded and few people agrees with your use of it.

Given the number of women on Tumblr who will happily shout down others just to be right (as far as they're concerned with "right'), I don't think this is a trait specific to men. All people like being smart and like being able to show that.

You are absolutely right. ESPN comments are pretty bad. :)

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#113

Post by Karunamon »

lutusp wrote: post #109
Karunamon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "stunt"? Why is this such a big deal to people? I've never found a login to be a particularly onerous thing.

Easy to answer -- a website that doesn't require a login (for casual reads) hopes to attract visitors. A website that does require a login hopes to control and exploit visitors.

"Control and exploit".

How melodramatic.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#114

Post by kamaal »

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.

>>tries to con people into signing up to boost its user numbers

I never understood this. As long as there is a infinite supply of free email accounts available. Any body who asks people to sign up merely to read content is just fooling themselves into thinking people are going to supply genuine email id's to read stuff.

These days I keep a email id handy for purposes like these.

Want me to sign up? Sure why not? But don't expect it to be the id which I use to do serious stuff.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#115

Post by [deleted] »

grimlck wrote: post #68
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.

[deleted]

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#116

Post by dgreensp »

grimlck wrote: post #68
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.

I'm not going to defend Quora's actions, but your comment sounds like knee-jerk cynicism to me, especially if you don't know the founders personally, and that irritates me. If you've started a start-up before, you know the mix of a big vision, good intentions, and also some desire for fame and/or fortune that varies from founder to founder.

Starting a site like Quora and painstakingly nursing a community of intellectuals into existence would be a pretty dumb way to make fast money, given all the possible business models for doing so.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#117

Post by sytelus »

DanBC wrote: post #92
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)?

"What's a list of good books about programming language X?" "I'm switching from this programming language to that programming language; what are the important gotchas?"

While I agree these kind of questions requires answers with some information, in reality most answers would be highly subjective. Same subjective answers can readily be found by simple web search. They also promote me-too wars and pointless debates on why my subjective POV is better than yours. Soon these type of questions would overwhelm the "real" questions and the participants who want more substance would move on.

This has actually been my #1 appalling thing about Quora. The questions being asked on it are so often such a low quality that I worry about if I'm getting in to some sort of intellectual ghetto. Consequently, I rarely want Quora to tell anybody that I was on that website. I have also developed perception that people very active on Quora have fairly low bar (note that there are many tech celebrities on it but they are usually one-offs).

Examples from current Quora frontpage:

"How do people who have been affected by "Bendgate" feel about it?"

"Why am I so scared to ask for help?"

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#118

Post by silvaring »

Communitivity wrote: post #8

"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?" Different currencies. The owners of Quora are being paid in US dollars, the content creators in both attention and reputation. Both attention and reputation are currencies that will translate to dollars more and more as we progress towards an, in-part, reputation-based economy. With…

@Communitivity, you said "With everyone having access to information what will matter will be your curation of that information, and your commentary". The problem with this view is the curation of the curators that is occuring in our reputation based economy. When popularity is the main arbiter of quality the cult of unfair celebrity runs wild, just like in the non-internet world. You need to assign fairness to content, otherwise its like what rustyconover has said, its just another system of social inequality that benefits only a small minority.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#119

Post by karl42 »

DanBC wrote: post #98
richardw wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wikipedia is a terrible example to use for a community. Wikipedia is a great guide of things to avoid. Take signing up for an account: the software has some control over what username you can create. Then there is some level of admin on top. So, as well as the software limits there is the username policy. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy That page has nice advice about what to do with bad user…

And despite all these problems, wikipedia is extremely useful.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#120

Post by seige »

I remember once being very passionate about Quora and I really wanted to join their team.

After doing my research, I came to get data that they are extremely biased to only take ex-Stanford, ex-Facebook people. This was back in 2011-2012 so I hope things have changed atleast from that angle.

My friend interviewed with them and he came back with a very bad experience and was extremely pissed off that he was almost ridiculed for not having cracked it so far in his career.

Anyways, their practices have been very dubious from the start. They should thank those deep pockets of the founders.

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