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I used to enjoy Quora, but it lost its charm and I quit once my feed became mostly filled with questions such as: - As a software engineer, what makes you roll

I used to enjoy Quora, but it lost its charm and I quit once my feed became mostly filled with questions such as: - As a software engineer, what makes you roll your eyes every time you hear it? - What did your mother say that made your jaw drop? - What can I learn in one minute that will be useful for the rest of my life? Those open questions just feel clickbait-y, with no real value added. I occasionally see questions similar to the last one on HN (for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21913129), it’s OK once in a while, but I hope it doesn’t become the norm. I think the HN userbase’s mindset and strong moderation guarantees that for now.

TomVDB 7y ago
These kind of questions where most likely generated by paid question askers who receive a cut of the ad revenue. I have first hand knowledge of somebody who made pretty good money doing exactly that. His rule of thumb was: the dumber the question, the more profitable it was for him.
- omega3 7y ago
  What has always amazed me about Quora is that for every dumb one line question in the vein of "How do we know that the moon is not made of cheese?" there would be 500 word very well researched reply from an ex NASA chief of lunar mission. It always was baffling for me that such low effort questions would get such amazing answers.
  - wrinkl3 7y ago
    Some people just enjoy listening to themselves talk.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      It's more that some people genuinely love sharing their knowledge and investing their time to help others. These people generate the most value for Quora but unfortunately don't get anything out of it.
Antrikshy 7y ago
It's like r/AskReddit with a slightly different audience.
- nindalf 7y ago
  /r/AskReddit but with no moderation. Anyone can ask any question no matter how dumb.
  - IshKebab 7y ago
    Isn't that true of AskReddit too? Nobody moderates the endless "girls of Reddit, what's something sexy that men don't realise?" questions.
    - nindalf 7y ago
      There is some moderation even if it is lenient. But yes, the quality of discussion on AskReddit is low, which is why I unsubscribed more than half a decade ago. Thankfully, there's other sections of reddit that are in a better state. Quora, however, is a one-trick pony. It's just AskReddit and nothing else. There's no AskHistorians (with it's high standards) or askscience.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    The moderation is done through downvoting the question or leaving it unanswered. There are actual moderators but Quora is much more passively moderated. There's plenty of good content, it's just overloaded by crap questions since Quora pays people to ask (but not answer).
- felixg3 7y ago
  FTFY: It's like r/askReddit with a mostly South Asian audience. My wife is Indian and used to be the quora top writer for 2014, afaik. The audience is quite dominated by Indians.
kabacha 7y ago
Yup I used to participate there almost daily but it has gotten so spammy and hard to navigate. It's lacking proper moderation. The constant notification/email spam and ad/suggestion riddent pages didn't help either. I'd wish something like quora would relaunch on Federation or something - surely hosting a simple QA platform can't be that difficult or expensive.
flomo 7y ago
At one point years ago I signed-up for Quora, and the question feed was filled with stuff like: * Did Picard violate the Prime Directive in TNG S6E13? * If five ninjas attacked you, how you would you physically defeat them? * Here's the intellectual take on Spiderman fighting Batman, do you agree? * Men who have dated supermodels, what was it like? I thought it was supposed to be a somewhat serious site but it obviously wasn't. I don't think I ever went back. Perhaps the whole point was just a glorified PHP BBS, with a nice theme, better seo, and SV in-crowd early adopters. I never got it.
- ralfd 7y ago
  > Did Picard violate the Prime Directive in TNG S6E13 I know you typed that randomly, but for anyone wondering: > Geordi La Forge falls in love with a woman accused of murder in an isolated communication relay station. The Enterprise crew investigates the crime, the only other suspect is a Klingon officer who frequently visited the station. > In 2019, ScreenRant ranked it the ninth worst episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation based on IMDB ratings, which was 6.1 out of 10 at that time.[3] They were critical of the Klingon subplot and described Geordi as a sexual predator.[3] > If five ninjas attacked you, how you would you physically defeat them? Don’t let them circle you? > Here's the intellectual take on Spiderman fighting Batman, do you agree? Batman would win. Bruce Wayne is smart and has a bat cave and Peter Parker is just a junior intern at buzzfeed. > Men who have dated supermodels, what was it like? I would click that
- manigandham 7y ago
  Like any UGC site, your experience is entirely shaped by who you follow. You can read follow any number of scientific people there if you want hard technical answers.
tandav 7y ago
To be fair Ask HN questions are often clickbait-y too. Like: - "What book made the most impact on you"? - "Best tech talk you watched in 2019"? - "How you beat procrastination"?
medion 7y ago
This is definitely because of paid questions - if you take a look at the most revenue generating questions they are all pretty dumb - I spent some time trying to think of some good questions to see whether it was possible to make money, but soon realised I couldn't bring myself to participate in such stupidity - if a good question is worth nothing from a financial perspective, why bother? They need to start incentivising answers in someway soon otherwise it's going to go even further downhill.
jammygit 7y ago
Every answer to a “recommend x” question is just self promoters pitching their own product too. It’s just advertising at that point, not real information

TomVDB 7y ago

These kind of questions where most likely generated by paid question askers who receive a cut of the ad revenue. I have first hand knowledge of somebody who made pretty good money doing exactly that. His rule of thumb was: the dumber the question, the more profitable it was for him.

omega3 7y ago
What has always amazed me about Quora is that for every dumb one line question in the vein of "How do we know that the moon is not made of cheese?" there would be 500 word very well researched reply from an ex NASA chief of lunar mission. It always was baffling for me that such low effort questions would get such amazing answers.
- wrinkl3 7y ago
  Some people just enjoy listening to themselves talk.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    It's more that some people genuinely love sharing their knowledge and investing their time to help others. These people generate the most value for Quora but unfortunately don't get anything out of it.

Antrikshy 7y ago

It's like r/AskReddit with a slightly different audience.

nindalf 7y ago
/r/AskReddit but with no moderation. Anyone can ask any question no matter how dumb.
- IshKebab 7y ago
  Isn't that true of AskReddit too? Nobody moderates the endless "girls of Reddit, what's something sexy that men don't realise?" questions.
  - nindalf 7y ago
    There is some moderation even if it is lenient. But yes, the quality of discussion on AskReddit is low, which is why I unsubscribed more than half a decade ago. Thankfully, there's other sections of reddit that are in a better state. Quora, however, is a one-trick pony. It's just AskReddit and nothing else. There's no AskHistorians (with it's high standards) or askscience.
- manigandham 7y ago
  The moderation is done through downvoting the question or leaving it unanswered. There are actual moderators but Quora is much more passively moderated. There's plenty of good content, it's just overloaded by crap questions since Quora pays people to ask (but not answer).
felixg3 7y ago
FTFY: It's like r/askReddit with a mostly South Asian audience. My wife is Indian and used to be the quora top writer for 2014, afaik. The audience is quite dominated by Indians.

kabacha 7y ago

Yup I used to participate there almost daily but it has gotten so spammy and hard to navigate. It's lacking proper moderation. The constant notification/email spam and ad/suggestion riddent pages didn't help either. I'd wish something like quora would relaunch on Federation or something - surely hosting a simple QA platform can't be that difficult or expensive.

flomo 7y ago

At one point years ago I signed-up for Quora, and the question feed was filled with stuff like: * Did Picard violate the Prime Directive in TNG S6E13? * If five ninjas attacked you, how you would you physically defeat them? * Here's the intellectual take on Spiderman fighting Batman, do you agree? * Men who have dated supermodels, what was it like? I thought it was supposed to be a somewhat serious site but it obviously wasn't. I don't think I ever went back. Perhaps the whole point was just a glorified PHP BBS, with a nice theme, better seo, and SV in-crowd early adopters. I never got it.

ralfd 7y ago
> Did Picard violate the Prime Directive in TNG S6E13 I know you typed that randomly, but for anyone wondering: > Geordi La Forge falls in love with a woman accused of murder in an isolated communication relay station. The Enterprise crew investigates the crime, the only other suspect is a Klingon officer who frequently visited the station. > In 2019, ScreenRant ranked it the ninth worst episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation based on IMDB ratings, which was 6.1 out of 10 at that time.[3] They were critical of the Klingon subplot and described Geordi as a sexual predator.[3] > If five ninjas attacked you, how you would you physically defeat them? Don’t let them circle you? > Here's the intellectual take on Spiderman fighting Batman, do you agree? Batman would win. Bruce Wayne is smart and has a bat cave and Peter Parker is just a junior intern at buzzfeed. > Men who have dated supermodels, what was it like? I would click that
manigandham 7y ago
Like any UGC site, your experience is entirely shaped by who you follow. You can read follow any number of scientific people there if you want hard technical answers.

tandav 7y ago

To be fair Ask HN questions are often clickbait-y too. Like: - "What book made the most impact on you"? - "Best tech talk you watched in 2019"? - "How you beat procrastination"?

medion 7y ago

This is definitely because of paid questions - if you take a look at the most revenue generating questions they are all pretty dumb - I spent some time trying to think of some good questions to see whether it was possible to make money, but soon realised I couldn't bring myself to participate in such stupidity - if a good question is worth nothing from a financial perspective, why bother? They need to start incentivising answers in someway soon otherwise it's going to go even further downhill.

jammygit 7y ago

Every answer to a “recommend x” question is just self promoters pitching their own product too. It’s just advertising at that point, not real information