4 ms·

Quora is removing anonymised Answers from its platform

7 points by 4monthsaway 5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago
Quite a shame. Not my preferred Q&A platform, but to inhibit people from writing answers seems not a smart move. Perhaps this is a quality initiative, but it probably won't shift demographics.
- jfengel 5y ago
  They do allow pseudonymous answers, so in most cases people can answer without fear of reprisal. The anonymity was meant to be absolutely secure against that -- not even a warrant could break anonymity. But it made it impossible to moderate the site, because there was a ton of persistent trolling and neither the administrators nor self-moderation tools were of any use. So this does remove a narrow use case of, say, whistleblowing or reporting from war zone. But I'll be blunt that I saw zero uses of that, and a ton of abuse. You're right that it won't shift demographics. As I wrote in a separate comment the anonymous answers were less used for abuse than anonymous questions. I suspect it's more about software maintenance, ceasing to maintain a use case that has little value and much headache.
  - 4monthsaway 5y ago
    Do you have any resources where I can learn more on this? It sounds interesting
nomorecommas 5y ago
Let them go the way of tumblr.
jfengel 5y ago
I never found anonymous answers to be nearly as big an issue as the questions. They didn't seem to get as much distribution. Questions are intended to go looking for answers, and thus got spread widely; anonymous answers of poor quality would be downvoted and disappear. The site was vastly improved by removing anonymous questions. The use case was extremely narrow: a generic question would already be asked ("How do I get away from a violent boyfriend?") and specific ones risked violating anonymity ("How do I get away from a violent boyfriend in zip code XXXXX?") I suspect that the replacement of anonymous answers is more about streamlining the code -- eliminating a whole separate case that has to be tested and maintained -- than about improving the site. But even if the use case for anonymous answers was more realistic than for anonymous questions, it was practically never used that way. It was almost always trolling. Among the Top Writers, practically none were sad to see it go.

7 points by 4monthsaway 5y ago

Quite a shame. Not my preferred Q&A platform, but to inhibit people from writing answers seems not a smart move. Perhaps this is a quality initiative, but it probably won't shift demographics.

jfengel 5y ago
They do allow pseudonymous answers, so in most cases people can answer without fear of reprisal. The anonymity was meant to be absolutely secure against that -- not even a warrant could break anonymity. But it made it impossible to moderate the site, because there was a ton of persistent trolling and neither the administrators nor self-moderation tools were of any use. So this does remove a narrow use case of, say, whistleblowing or reporting from war zone. But I'll be blunt that I saw zero uses of that, and a ton of abuse. You're right that it won't shift demographics. As I wrote in a separate comment the anonymous answers were less used for abuse than anonymous questions. I suspect it's more about software maintenance, ceasing to maintain a use case that has little value and much headache.
- 4monthsaway 5y ago
  Do you have any resources where I can learn more on this? It sounds interesting

nomorecommas 5y ago

Let them go the way of tumblr.

jfengel 5y ago

I never found anonymous answers to be nearly as big an issue as the questions. They didn't seem to get as much distribution. Questions are intended to go looking for answers, and thus got spread widely; anonymous answers of poor quality would be downvoted and disappear. The site was vastly improved by removing anonymous questions. The use case was extremely narrow: a generic question would already be asked ("How do I get away from a violent boyfriend?") and specific ones risked violating anonymity ("How do I get away from a violent boyfriend in zip code XXXXX?") I suspect that the replacement of anonymous answers is more about streamlining the code -- eliminating a whole separate case that has to be tested and maintained -- than about improving the site. But even if the use case for anonymous answers was more realistic than for anonymous questions, it was practically never used that way. It was almost always trolling. Among the Top Writers, practically none were sad to see it go.