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Something no one else has mentioned yet (perhaps for fear of plunging down the meta discussion rabbit hole) is the degree to which HN competes with Quora. As a

Something no one else has mentioned yet (perhaps for fear of plunging down the meta discussion rabbit hole) is the degree to which HN competes with Quora. As a small experiment, I'd previously posed roughly the same question to both HN and Quora. http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-optimum-pricing-strategy-for-a-new-iPhone-application http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-optimum-pricing-strategy-fo... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2097527 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2097527 The response from HN absolutely destroyed the response from Quora. Those links don't even tell the whole story as I had multiple people email me directly from the HN community to offer advice and in one case give me access to a private iPhone application price research tool that he'd built for his own use.

phlux 16y ago
To be fair; the audience for your particular question is better on HN than Quora. If you had asked "what is the optimal pricing strategy for funding an iphone startup" quora may have been a better bet.
- michaelbuckbee 16y ago
  I'm not disagreeing with you so much as I'm still honestly sort of stumped as to what exactly is the "sweet spot" in Quora's audience.
  - tuhin 16y ago
    The sweet spot comes from users who have been to the companies during the phases about which the questions are asked. Where else can you find how much serving the Like button costs to Fb. Sure you can do a guess-estimate but how close would that be to the figure quoted by Tweetmeme CEO about their RT buttons. There are countless such incidents. I think if the user base has some sort of expertise in an area and they "choose" to answer questions about thos domains only, that would be make it a great place for knowledge. I honestly think Quora is the lovechild of Twitter and Wikipedia. You can call it the real time Wikipedia with Questions than topics having info that I do not give a damn about.
codinghorror 16y ago
In my so-called expert opinion, only communities focused around particular topics get enough traction to be useful. The "let's talk about everything!" solution is just varying paths to the wide world of Yahoo Answers. That said, Quora could end up being a slightly better Yahoo Answers which is actually a net plus for the world, considering the sad and depressing state of Yahoo Answers.
kmfrk 16y ago
Your "evidence" is anecdotal. Compare this to an answer like this on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Venture-Capital/How-can-I-prevent-shareholders-from-taking-over-my-startup?q=how+do+I+prevent+shareholders http://www.quora.com/Venture-Capital/How-can-I-prevent-share.... There are things I'd rather ask about on HN, and the same applies to Quora.
- michaelbuckbee 16y ago
  I think we're agreeing more than we're disagreeing. My point was mainly that there is a large degree of overlap between the areas of discussion on the two sites. I'd be very interested in knowing your criteria for which site to ask what kinds of questions.
  - kmfrk 16y ago
    You just seem(ed) very dismissive of Quora in your example. I also think that your verbiage of "destroyed" is greatly exaggerated. I think that, on average, you'll get a much more useful response on HN, because there is a general feeling of how to reply and what can be done. When you write a question on Quora, it doesn't feel like you create a discussion; you submit a ticket you hope people will be kind enough to answer (seeing that there is no incentive, i.e. reward, model in Quora whatsoever). The comments for each answer are just yays, nays, and cutesy remarks. There's a reason I don't feel comfortable calling Quora a community, because the interaction is mainly from answerer to asker.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  I don't understand that, how do investors gain control of a company? How do you ensure board control? If you have 51%+ of the company, can't you just veto everything else?

phlux 16y ago

To be fair; the audience for your particular question is better on HN than Quora. If you had asked "what is the optimal pricing strategy for funding an iphone startup" quora may have been a better bet.

michaelbuckbee 16y ago
I'm not disagreeing with you so much as I'm still honestly sort of stumped as to what exactly is the "sweet spot" in Quora's audience.
- tuhin 16y ago
  The sweet spot comes from users who have been to the companies during the phases about which the questions are asked. Where else can you find how much serving the Like button costs to Fb. Sure you can do a guess-estimate but how close would that be to the figure quoted by Tweetmeme CEO about their RT buttons. There are countless such incidents. I think if the user base has some sort of expertise in an area and they "choose" to answer questions about thos domains only, that would be make it a great place for knowledge. I honestly think Quora is the lovechild of Twitter and Wikipedia. You can call it the real time Wikipedia with Questions than topics having info that I do not give a damn about.

codinghorror 16y ago

In my so-called expert opinion, only communities focused around particular topics get enough traction to be useful. The "let's talk about everything!" solution is just varying paths to the wide world of Yahoo Answers. That said, Quora could end up being a slightly better Yahoo Answers which is actually a net plus for the world, considering the sad and depressing state of Yahoo Answers.

kmfrk 16y ago

Your "evidence" is anecdotal. Compare this to an answer like this on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Venture-Capital/How-can-I-prevent-shareholders-from-taking-over-my-startup?q=how+do+I+prevent+shareholders http://www.quora.com/Venture-Capital/How-can-I-prevent-share.... There are things I'd rather ask about on HN, and the same applies to Quora.

michaelbuckbee 16y ago
I think we're agreeing more than we're disagreeing. My point was mainly that there is a large degree of overlap between the areas of discussion on the two sites. I'd be very interested in knowing your criteria for which site to ask what kinds of questions.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  You just seem(ed) very dismissive of Quora in your example. I also think that your verbiage of "destroyed" is greatly exaggerated. I think that, on average, you'll get a much more useful response on HN, because there is a general feeling of how to reply and what can be done. When you write a question on Quora, it doesn't feel like you create a discussion; you submit a ticket you hope people will be kind enough to answer (seeing that there is no incentive, i.e. reward, model in Quora whatsoever). The comments for each answer are just yays, nays, and cutesy remarks. There's a reason I don't feel comfortable calling Quora a community, because the interaction is mainly from answerer to asker.
StavrosK 16y ago
I don't understand that, how do investors gain control of a company? How do you ensure board control? If you have 51%+ of the company, can't you just veto everything else?