Has Quora not peaked already? I was a fan of it in the early '10s, but around 2013/14 it seemed to experience an influx of users who turned it into an alternative to Yahoo! Answers. With no way of filtering them out, it seemed pointless continuing to use it.
Why Not to Use Quora
151–160 of 209 posts
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#152These are some good points. I find it particularly annoying that answers get blocked out unless you're logged in. Stinks like a dark pattern from a mile away.
And I agree with a lot of the comments made so far. The quality of answers has detoriated a lot. In all fairness, this has largely to do with the fact that so many people now see Quora as the 'go-to marketing platform'. As a result, people write crappy answers in hopes that someone will click their 'educational and informative' links to full blog posts. And it's unlikely this is going to go away, since moderating at this scale isn't possible without losing a lot of money in the process.
Another thing that really annoys me about Quora is that the site promotes the same people and answers almost exclusively. You have a lot of 'self-made experts' who happen to have had exposure on a large TV network or something of sorts, and all of a sudden their answers have become the gospel of knowledge. This approach makes the site feel one-sided without any real depth to answers.
That being said, it's not all bad. I enjoy writing answers on topics I know about (200k answer views in 4 years), and you can generally get someone to answer something for you rather quickly.
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#153I haven't used Quora much over the years, so maybe it has an actual reason to exist, but I was under the impression that it's a site with fake/barely real questions, with answers by folks trying to sell something. I don't think I've ever had a search result where I clicked on a Quora link and there wasn't an attempt to sell/market something in one or more of the answers. Then you click on other questions, and you're supposed to register. I've always assumed it's a junk site.
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#154I am a bit late to the party, but I also dislike how Quora blurs the text if you are not logged in. Sometimes I am incognito mode so this is a problem.
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#155> Nearly every major online service has had a security breach: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, Tumblr, Uber, Evernote, eBay, Adobe, Target, and Sony... Security breaches like these are a strong argument for using a password manager...
I don't recall a major password manager security breach, but I am afraid it is only a question of time. And the consequences will not be just compounded, they will be multiplied.
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#156All philosophical views aside, there are some really core issues that got me to stop using Quora and unfortunately the case to stop using it is made by the site itself: * The content quality has deteriorated significantly since the site's inception. The content is far cheaper than before and far less interesting in very obvious ways. * Moderation systems have not done a good job of growing the site as a community. Th…
I never found the quality to be anywhere near as good as Stack Exchange, even when Quora first launched. Why anyone would knowingly use Quora over Stack Exchange is a mystery to me; I suspect that most Quora users simply aren't aware that Stack Exchange exists, since SE traditionally catered primarily to a technical audience. Edit: One of my biggest gripes with the platform is that it's always solicited a large numbe…
SE and Q do different jobs.
Q is better at "soft" knowledge - psychology, personal history, experience, opinion.
SE is better for "hard" knowledge - clearly-defined problems with specific solutions.
Having said that, I find SE very, very frustrating.
Given any problem, the answers invariably seem to include multiple takes with distracting or irrelevant side points; show-boating comments, often nit-picky, about very minor issues; just plain wrong answers that have been massively upvoted; no account of chronology - later answers always have fewer votes than older answers, even if they're better solutions; moderator show-boating with questions closed for no good reason (e.g. when dupes aren't really dupes.)
SE's problem is that accretion wins over refinement. IMO it should have been more like a Wiki, with a much clearer distinction between content - i.e. stock answers, with comments - and debate about content.
I enjoy my Quora feed, but I treat it more as entertainment. I wouldn't use it for anything mission critical. I actually agree with Q and not the WB comments - comments about private experiences or opinions are the property of the authors, not communal property, and authors should have the right to withdraw them.
Also - FB isn't archived either. Do the WB people have the same negative attitude to FB groups?
As for SE - sometimes I try to use SE for mission critical problems. Usually I get a few hints from the answers, then end up having to solve the problem independently.
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#157All philosophical views aside, there are some really core issues that got me to stop using Quora and unfortunately the case to stop using it is made by the site itself: * The content quality has deteriorated significantly since the site's inception. The content is far cheaper than before and far less interesting in very obvious ways. * Moderation systems have not done a good job of growing the site as a community. Th…
I have also seen the content quality decline. Online community management and moderation policies seem like an important research area but I have found little that explores the dynamics of these communities and analysis of which policies work and which don't. Why, for instance, are the comments here on HN generally quite good but not so good on other technical sites? What kind of moderation would enable people with differing political views to discuss them without the usual flaming?
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#158All philosophical views aside, there are some really core issues that got me to stop using Quora and unfortunately the case to stop using it is made by the site itself: * The content quality has deteriorated significantly since the site's inception. The content is far cheaper than before and far less interesting in very obvious ways. * Moderation systems have not done a good job of growing the site as a community. Th…
I never found the quality to be anywhere near as good as Stack Exchange, even when Quora first launched. Why anyone would knowingly use Quora over Stack Exchange is a mystery to me; I suspect that most Quora users simply aren't aware that Stack Exchange exists, since SE traditionally catered primarily to a technical audience. Edit: One of my biggest gripes with the platform is that it's always solicited a large numbe…
The vibe on many of the technical branches of SE is one of exclusivity and pretentiousness. Just Friday I was stuck on using some old CLI tool that nobody uses any more, and my problem was two some obscure settings in the myriad options that you can set that had to be configured for this case just because. Somebody at SE came back to an ancient question on the site last year and updated it with the answer last year.
And I can't even thank him. Quora is much easier to assimilate into.
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#159For me Quora has improved, I get really interesting answers emailed to me on topics I find interesting, Roman history is one
Re: Why Not to Use Quora
#160I haven't used Quora much over the years, so maybe it has an actual reason to exist, but I was under the impression that it's a site with fake/barely real questions, with answers by folks trying to sell something. I don't think I've ever had a search result where I clicked on a Quora link and there wasn't an attempt to sell/market something in one or more of the answers. Then you click on other questions, and you're…
One of the original draws was asking a question and getting an answer from a guru. Like asking a question on SO and having Torvalds politely respond. It was actually a feature, not too far removed from Reddit's AMA.