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The downfall of Quora (2013)

thegoodones.quora.com

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Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#71

Post by bronbron »

swartkrans wrote: post #66
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 with…

> 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 exact same criticism of Wikipedia, Reddit, . It doesn't really provide any insight I didn't know already: big social communities tend to get co-opted by people with agendas and too much time on their hand. Cool.

Talking about company strategy and why it is unlikely to be successful is interesting, and provides good salient points for the rest of us. Talking about 'rad fems' taking over Quora? Not so much.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#72

Post by tokenadult »

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.

we'd be better off discussing Quora based on virtually any other story about it.

Do you have any specific suggestions? Adding one or two in as an edit to your comment would be much appreciated. I'd like to have a balanced perspective on Quora's place in the industry.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#73

Post by defen »

idlewords wrote: post #13
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that HN is overall tolerant of the occasional bit of humor or even snark, definitely to a point where you do not feel constrained.

I've found it to be a viper pit of humorless aspies

Your comparison of non-neurotypical people to deadly venomous snakes is not only dehumanizing but also incorrect. Sure, if a person bit you, the wound might get infected and eventually cause problems, but it would almost certainly be treatable with a standard first aid kit. A viper bite would require immediate treatment with antivenom to prevent necrosis, limb amputation, or potentially even death.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#74

Post by troymc »

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…

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

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#75

Post by cloakandswagger »

tptacek wrote: post #58
idlewords wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found it to be a viper pit of humorless aspies

Are humorless aspies really all that dangerous?

Individually, no. In large numbers they'll spark a chain reaction of humorless over-analyzing which consumes and ultimately destroys the herd.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#76

Post by not_a_test_user »

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 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".

This was their first and final strike for me. If they didn't want me why would I want to sign up now?

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#77

Post by cloakandswagger »

quadrangle wrote: post #70

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??

Fake exclusivity wrapped in a shell of pseudo-intellectualism.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#78

Post by cloakandswagger »

bronbron wrote: post #71
swartkrans wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 with…

> 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?

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#79

Post by slantyyz »

avn2109 wrote: post #65
Turing_Machine wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This.

I too, have found so many downmodded questions to have the exact answer I needed for a particular problem. It's by far the most frustrating part of using Stack Overflow.

The overzealous modding has had a chilling effect on my desire to ask a question on SO, because nobody wants their question to be downmodded as a stupid or pointless question.

Re: The downfall of Quora (2013)

#80

Post by michaelochurch »

Quora has a lot of high-quality content. Yeah, you have to sift through some garbage, but compared to Yahoo! Answers it's a different world. Most of the time, the top answer will be a good one.

It may not stay that way forever, but thus far, the quality of the best content is really good when you consider that people wrote it for free, and that the filter is some mix of community voting and machine learning (as opposed to expert curation).

That said, I didn't know about the US-only policy (that was a bad idea) and I'm glad they've changed it. The "social" integration definitely pisses me off, because 90% of "social" in this era is alienation. I considered quitting when I found out that my activity was getting piped out to Facebook. Awful decision.

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