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Whenever I stumble across a Quora question, the website hides everything with a subscription overlay. Even after getting rid of it, I'm only shown the first ans

by yoha 13y ago

Whenever I stumble across a Quora question, the website hides everything with a subscription overlay. Even after getting rid of it, I'm only shown the first answer. After some time, my mind has associated Quora with “I don't want to be there”. Stack Overflow (SO) gained a lot of popularity by having open access; that's basically the Foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique. On the other hand, I have witnessed that up-only websites usually have a better content (e.g. HN) than up-or-down websites (e.g. Reddit). This is easily understood because people will tend to use the down vote against things they do not agree (politics, to obvious of a question, etc) with instead of badly-shapped posts. I think the way SO goes is pretty good despite the known flaws, and I would not be competent enough to propose solutions for these. Edit: removed incorrect expression "out of random"

jimmyhmiller 13y ago
What is out of random? I've never heard of it and unfortunately it has a very ungooglable name.
- yoha 13y ago
  It's not a name, just me badly translating "au hasard", which roughly means that I'm pretending to have picked HN at random while it's the very website where I'm posting. I'm removing it from my post for clarity. I don't know where this came from.
DanBC 13y ago
HN is not up-only for anyone over 500 (?) karma. The downvote button should be used early and often. Downvotes are not used enough on HN. Upvotes are used in a weird way.
- yoha 13y ago
  Yes, I did not consider that. But I think the fact that recent account can only upvote is a good thing for the quality of comments. I agree that downvotes can be meaningful, but they are often used to vote against an opinion, which is not good for a conversation.
notastartup 13y ago
I noticed this about Quora too. I land at Quora through google only by chance. As soon as I see that signin box, I leave. It's unfortunate because it would be a great site if it didn't try to be so much like facebook of questions. The downvote observation is a very good one. Downvoting is destructive in general and unpleasant for the content writer.

by yoha 13y ago

jimmyhmiller 13y ago

What is out of random? I've never heard of it and unfortunately it has a very ungooglable name.

yoha 13y ago
It's not a name, just me badly translating "au hasard", which roughly means that I'm pretending to have picked HN at random while it's the very website where I'm posting. I'm removing it from my post for clarity. I don't know where this came from.

DanBC 13y ago

HN is not up-only for anyone over 500 (?) karma. The downvote button should be used early and often. Downvotes are not used enough on HN. Upvotes are used in a weird way.

yoha 13y ago
Yes, I did not consider that. But I think the fact that recent account can only upvote is a good thing for the quality of comments. I agree that downvotes can be meaningful, but they are often used to vote against an opinion, which is not good for a conversation.

notastartup 13y ago

I noticed this about Quora too. I land at Quora through google only by chance. As soon as I see that signin box, I leave. It's unfortunate because it would be a great site if it didn't try to be so much like facebook of questions. The downvote observation is a very good one. Downvoting is destructive in general and unpleasant for the content writer.