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Quora's problems today are a direct result of what made them popular: celebrity. They made a great big splash when the media genuflected to the idea that "You

Quora's problems today are a direct result of what made them popular: celebrity. They made a great big splash when the media genuflected to the idea that "You can ask a question about Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg could answer!" So regardless of the question or answer there will always be dominance by celebrities and their celebrators gleefully upvoting anything they post regardless of underlying fact. I prefer Stack Exchange. The site is less about being the best person to answer and more about the answer itself. There is far less correlation the number of fans a given user has to their number of up votes and likeliness to be accepted by OP as correct or most helpful. I find real discussion occurs when we lose our preoccupations with who we are and focus on the subject matter instead.

CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
One thing I love about Stack Exchange is the ability to add "This advice is INSECURE! See Beth's answer below for a better way to solve this problem." to accepted answers with really bad suggestions.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  These kinds of answers get called out fairly quickly.
  - CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
    Not always. https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/293930/problematic-php-cryptography-advice-in-popular-questions https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/293930/problematic-...
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  I briefly played around on StackOverflow and StackExchange Security as Nick P. I remember doing exactly what you describe a few times where some bullshit or sometimes wisdom from other comments/answers needed attention. One, which didn't mention other author, got changed to accepted answer and was about half my karma haha. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16062432/protecting-java-source-code-from-being-accessed/16066487#16066487 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16062432/protecting-java... I figured the site was addictive like digital crack early on. Wisely avoided spending too much time on it. Anything like that. (Pauses to look at address bar.) Or did I...?
autotune 11y ago
That explains why the most popular questions are about getting a job at the big 4, or IQ bollocks.
wrsh07 11y ago
It would make for an interesting network to analyze, though. Because you could essentially decrease the weight of successive "similar" votes [eg if two people who are fans of the same celebrities vote, their votes could be discounted slightly]. In this way, Quora could try to use a sophisticated voting system to suss out the best answer.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Voting is an inefficient way to find the truth. And weighting votes against celebrity posts is just punishing success. I think Stack Exchange does this best with the ability to edit answers, but at the very least people who disagree should be able to state their case without being pushed to the bottom of the thread.
bmm6o 11y ago
The Quora experience is very polarizing. Some people have the exact opposite reaction from yours. My take is that a lot of people in SV view it positively and that's why it's always been such a VC media darling, but that the your view predominates in the rest of the world and that's why it hasn't really been successful. FWIW, I agree with you; I find it a little gross and fawning with a lot of appeal to authority.
emodendroket 11y ago
I don't know, what about, like, Jon Skeet, who could post a totally wrong answer and garner gazillions of upvotes

CiPHPerCoder 11y ago

One thing I love about Stack Exchange is the ability to add "This advice is INSECURE! See Beth's answer below for a better way to solve this problem." to accepted answers with really bad suggestions.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
These kinds of answers get called out fairly quickly.
- CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
  Not always. https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/293930/problematic-php-cryptography-advice-in-popular-questions https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/293930/problematic-...
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I briefly played around on StackOverflow and StackExchange Security as Nick P. I remember doing exactly what you describe a few times where some bullshit or sometimes wisdom from other comments/answers needed attention. One, which didn't mention other author, got changed to accepted answer and was about half my karma haha. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16062432/protecting-java-source-code-from-being-accessed/16066487#16066487 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16062432/protecting-java... I figured the site was addictive like digital crack early on. Wisely avoided spending too much time on it. Anything like that. (Pauses to look at address bar.) Or did I...?

autotune 11y ago

That explains why the most popular questions are about getting a job at the big 4, or IQ bollocks.

wrsh07 11y ago

It would make for an interesting network to analyze, though. Because you could essentially decrease the weight of successive "similar" votes [eg if two people who are fans of the same celebrities vote, their votes could be discounted slightly]. In this way, Quora could try to use a sophisticated voting system to suss out the best answer.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
Voting is an inefficient way to find the truth. And weighting votes against celebrity posts is just punishing success. I think Stack Exchange does this best with the ability to edit answers, but at the very least people who disagree should be able to state their case without being pushed to the bottom of the thread.

bmm6o 11y ago

The Quora experience is very polarizing. Some people have the exact opposite reaction from yours. My take is that a lot of people in SV view it positively and that's why it's always been such a VC media darling, but that the your view predominates in the rest of the world and that's why it hasn't really been successful. FWIW, I agree with you; I find it a little gross and fawning with a lot of appeal to authority.

emodendroket 11y ago

I don't know, what about, like, Jon Skeet, who could post a totally wrong answer and garner gazillions of upvotes