

Ask HN: Does anyone else realize that Quora is just a fancy "Ask HN?"  - demandred


======
zasz
No. You can go on Quora and ask how much it cost AOL to send out all those
free trial CDs in the 90s, and the former freaking CEO of AOL himself gets on
and answers. [http://www.quora.com/How-much-did-it-cost-AOL-to-
distribute-...](http://www.quora.com/How-much-did-it-cost-AOL-to-distribute-
all-those-CDs-back-in-the-1990s)

The mods on HN would kill a question like the following one, no doubt:
[http://www.quora.com/It-is-possible-to-drop-a-marshmallow-
fr...](http://www.quora.com/It-is-possible-to-drop-a-marshmallow-from-a-
height-high-enough-so-that-it-releases-as-much-energy-as-a-nuclear-
warhead?q=marshmallow+nuclear)

The discussion on the Tiger Mom stuff was much better on Quora than HN:
[http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-
ex...](http://www.quora.com/Parenting/Is-Amy-Chua-right-when-she-explains-Why-
Chinese-Mothers-Are-Superior-in-an-op-ed-in-the-Wall-Street-Journal)

Hacker News is great at answering startup and coding-related questions, but
none of you will be able to answer this one:
[http://www.quora.com/Hearing/Why-and-how-do-we-hear-
ringing-...](http://www.quora.com/Hearing/Why-and-how-do-we-hear-ringing-in-
our-ears)

Quora has an incredible array of people with domain expertise, many of whom
are good writers who tend towards writing much longer answers than what you
see on HN. I can't exactly pinpoint why the design of Quora prompts such a
different array of questions and answers, beyond the different user base, but
it's definitely not a fancy HN. It's trying to solve a different problem. If
anything, it's a fancy cross between the Q&A-ness of Yahoo! Answers and a
rabid, tight-knit fangirl community, but it's much better executed than Yahoo!
Answers so far.

~~~
neworbit
That's a good summary, if perhaps a little down on the HN knowledge base than
I'd suspect.

For instance, I'm afraid I can tell you an awful lot about tinnitus but I
would be happier if I hadn't had the occasion to learn about it.

------
ig1
Do you realize that HN is just a fancy database ?

~~~
pestaa
I really enjoy it being not _that_ fancy.

------
staunch
It's reasonable to conclude that HN had a significant influence on Quora:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1197146>

That doesn't mean it's "just" HN though. It's clearly aiming to be very
different in the long term. At this point they're not really successful at
being any one thing yet.

