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Quora has the worst karma-whorage of any site out there and its more about who answers the questions rather than what they say. This has killed its credibility

Quora has the worst karma-whorage of any site out there and its more about who answers the questions rather than what they say. This has killed its credibility in my mind. (Contrast this with Stack Overflow, which is about high quality answers and doesn't seem to suffer from whoring for karma)

gojomo 15y ago
I agree there's something to your observation. And yet, Quora doesn't show karma totals or leaderboards, while SO does. How does Quora get more distracting status/attitude-competition when answers are only ranked against each other in the context of a single question – a tiny subset of the gamesmanship-encouragement that SO implements? Is it the greater subjectivity of Quora's topics? The vague pretentiousness of its seed community? Or something else?
- Androsynth 15y ago
  I think its because Quora is a tight-knit community that is not (well) aimed at a wide public audience. Increasing status can lead to tangible benefits. If you are popular within the community, its essentially networking which can lead to investment, job and other valuable opportunities. SO on the other hand, is more oriented at helping people coming in through search engines. (I would like to say it has better answers because its a more hacker oriented community that reflects open-source communities, but that would probably be an over-generalization. probably...)
- demione 15y ago
  IMO it has to do with the fact that Quora forces you to state your real name and credentials when creating an account. Although certain people will feel this is the way to ensure answers are given by the best possible authority on a subject, it actually hinders the meritocracy of user-driven content. Uneducated but well-informed Quora users may feel it's not worth their time to contribute, because they'll just be overshadowed by someone with better credentials. In essence, it's like paying for a game's DLC instead of putting in the time to earn it on your own, cheapening the experience for all.
- dmarquis 15y ago
  I think the comparison should really be between Quora and the whole Stack Exchange family of sites. I think there are two main reasons many of the areas in Quora are useless. First, Quora never got commitment from a group of verifiable experts to answer questions in an area before opening. Its a chicken and egg problem, experts won't join if there aren't already experts. SE goes halfway there by ensuring there is a community of people to use each particular area the site before bringing it online. Second, question askers on Quora are lazy. They don't explain what they have tried to do to learn about the answer already. They often don't know things that could have easily been found on google in a few minutes. Nobody wants to spend more than a fraction of the time on an answer than the asker has spent looking for an answer. So when an expert goes on the site they see a community of people who just want to get their knowledge without putting in any work themselves. QA sites will never replace search (as many of the Quora fans claim) for this reason. On SO this isn't as much of a problem. First,because its very hard to find answers to programming problems with search . Second, question askers have to explain carefully what they have tried in order to expect answers. However, on some other SE sites this is just as much of a problem as on Quora.

gojomo 15y ago

I agree there's something to your observation. And yet, Quora doesn't show karma totals or leaderboards, while SO does. How does Quora get more distracting status/attitude-competition when answers are only ranked against each other in the context of a single question – a tiny subset of the gamesmanship-encouragement that SO implements? Is it the greater subjectivity of Quora's topics? The vague pretentiousness of its seed community? Or something else?

Androsynth 15y ago
I think its because Quora is a tight-knit community that is not (well) aimed at a wide public audience. Increasing status can lead to tangible benefits. If you are popular within the community, its essentially networking which can lead to investment, job and other valuable opportunities. SO on the other hand, is more oriented at helping people coming in through search engines. (I would like to say it has better answers because its a more hacker oriented community that reflects open-source communities, but that would probably be an over-generalization. probably...)
demione 15y ago
IMO it has to do with the fact that Quora forces you to state your real name and credentials when creating an account. Although certain people will feel this is the way to ensure answers are given by the best possible authority on a subject, it actually hinders the meritocracy of user-driven content. Uneducated but well-informed Quora users may feel it's not worth their time to contribute, because they'll just be overshadowed by someone with better credentials. In essence, it's like paying for a game's DLC instead of putting in the time to earn it on your own, cheapening the experience for all.
dmarquis 15y ago
I think the comparison should really be between Quora and the whole Stack Exchange family of sites. I think there are two main reasons many of the areas in Quora are useless. First, Quora never got commitment from a group of verifiable experts to answer questions in an area before opening. Its a chicken and egg problem, experts won't join if there aren't already experts. SE goes halfway there by ensuring there is a community of people to use each particular area the site before bringing it online. Second, question askers on Quora are lazy. They don't explain what they have tried to do to learn about the answer already. They often don't know things that could have easily been found on google in a few minutes. Nobody wants to spend more than a fraction of the time on an answer than the asker has spent looking for an answer. So when an expert goes on the site they see a community of people who just want to get their knowledge without putting in any work themselves. QA sites will never replace search (as many of the Quora fans claim) for this reason. On SO this isn't as much of a problem. First,because its very hard to find answers to programming problems with search . Second, question askers have to explain carefully what they have tried in order to expect answers. However, on some other SE sites this is just as much of a problem as on Quora.