

Ask HN: Do you use Quora? - goronbjorn

Do you use Quora? If so, how and for what purposes?
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imechura
I was pretty happy with Quora as a source of knowledge until about a month or
so ago.

When I was using it, I was getting timely, interesting emails on a weekly
basis about startup companies and silicon valley inside information. After
receiving an email with an interesting topic I would spend about 45 minutes
browsing similar topics that interested me. To sum it up I found Quora to be a
very informative source of entertainment.

Now, over the last month or two the emails I've been getting have been
ridiculous topics more fitting for entertainment weekly than YCombinator.

On one hand I hope it returns to the level that it was in the past. On the
other hand there may not be a large enough user base with my requirements for
the owners to create a viable business so I would be understanding if my needs
where disregarded in a pivot.

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___Calv_Dee___
In addition to Quora's main features I use the custom boards to create various
"Buckets" so that as I discover content, I can sort it based on what I'd like
to use it for. As an example - I have a "Learning Bucket" and a "Stuff
Bucket". If I come across some content (article, online PDF, blog post, ...)
that will contribute to my knowledge I add it to my Learning Bucket board in
case I'd like to read it later or have a quick reference to it. If I come
across content I simply find interesting and may want to reference or check
out again I add it to my Stuff Bucket board. Quora provides a really clean
interface to organize your content and I highly recommend trying it out if not
solely for this purpose!

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Schwolop
Yep, it's my main procrastination tool. I like procrastinating in a way where
I can at least post hoc justify that it wasn't a _complete_ waste of time. On
Quora I do regularly learn new stuff, some of which has even been useful to my
life, rather than just trivia.

I've also come around to the boards feature. I originally hated the whole
concept because it seemed like noise in what was a pretty good source of
signal, but eventually it settled down a bit more. Most people now seem to use
them the way I do, just as a place to dump interesting content or things I
want to remember later, rather than a way to spam one's followers with
uselessness.

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skrish
I do use it to find relevant information for running a startup. In our case I
find a wealth of information on running a startup in US, convertible notes &
various other useful details which I find is hard to get expert advice on
elsewhere.

Having said that I sometimes find it a distraction as there is plenty of
'curious' stuff going on that could become a time sink. So I stay away from
that on most days. :)

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rdl
I use Quora a fair bit, but it has been overrun in the past several months
with worthless (negative value, really) survey questions and reddit style
memes.

It is great for startup questions (financing/vc things), but otherwise isn't
that compelling.

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lsiebert
Nope. But I did just start on Askolo.com

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kpennell
Yes, I love it.

