
Quora Keeps the World's Knowledge for Itself - luu
https://konklone.com/post/quora-keeps-the-worlds-knowledge-for-itself
======
nilkn
Quora is what would happen if George Lucas tried to design a Q&A site.
Brilliant in many ways, but it has all the signs of one single guy at the top
refusing advice from people for years about a few core issues and consequently
holding the entire enterprise back.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Isn't that how the Linux kernel evolved? Linus filling the role as benevolent
dictator?

~~~
cbd1984
Torvalds is amazingly good at what he does, and if someone doesn't like his
direction, the code is all there for the forking.

So, yes, a dictatorial model can accomplish good things, if the dictator, like
Torvalds, is smart enough to delegate as much as possible and actively avoid
making decisions. Torvalds being smart enough to pick smart underlings is the
second half of that puzzle.

------
pptr1
Honest question does anyone still use Quora? It seems more about being an ego
contest than actually answering questions. They are definitely not the
"library of Alexandria"... they far far from that.

~~~
atlantic
I've never actually used it. Every time I've followed a link there, I get a
popup telling me I have to register before seeing any content, which I've
refused to do.

~~~
jaredsohn
Just add ?share=1 to the URL to remove that (ideally the person posting would
have.)

~~~
MBCook
No.

Sites should try to get me to use them, I shouldn't have to try to use a site.

~~~
baddox
The information you'll get isn't worth typing the params into the URL bar. You
can find SF sushi recommendations elsewhere.

~~~
MBCook
That's been my experience. The few times I've seen a link because someone
actually set it up correctly I was disappointed when I got to the actual
content.

------
GuiA
_> Quora is not a private communications network. When users contribute to
Quora, they're participating in Quora's mission: to "share and grow the
world's knowledge"._

Well, in many ways Quora (just like any other web platform) IS a private
communications network.

And their mission is certainly not to "share and grow the world's knowledge".
As with any company, their mission is first and foremost to make their
investors happy, mostly by striving to make them richer every day than they
were the day before. The dreamy tagline is just a way to make the pill more
appealing to swallow for the users.

(remember Google's "Don't be evil"?)

I also despise Quora, and used to think it was terrible that huge swaths of
human knowledge would be lost a few years from now when they inevitably get
acquired/go bankrupt/etc.

But I'm not losing sleep over it anymore: they will be a mere blip in the
history of human knowledge, and while some valuable chunks of knowledge will
be lost, we can't do much about it.

I do wish the Wikimedia foundation set up an open Quora alternative. Wikipedia
is about objective knowledge - it seems like there would be a place for a
counterpart project about subjective knowledge. Properly moderated, it could
be really, really interesting.

~~~
konklone
> And their mission is certainly not to "share and grow the world's
> knowledge".

Well, I obviously agree that it's not their actual mission as executed. But
I'm putting it in quotes because I copied it from Quora's official About page:
[https://www.quora.com/about](https://www.quora.com/about)

------
ericdykstra
The way I understand it, part of the core value prop of Quora is that writers
own their own content distribution. If you want to post an answer on Quora,
and re-post it on your own blog, that's fantastic. If you want to post on
Quora and mark it _not for reproduction_, that's totally your choice. If you
think of it this way, it makes sense that Quora is not letting their content
get automatically distributed, since once it goes to Archive.org, it's no
longer under the users' control to revoke access to the answer at any time.
Not only do they not claim to own your content, they don't even let it
propagate without express permission from you, the author.

Taking a stance like this just gains trust from authors. If you want your
writing to get mass distribution, it's up to you to distribute it. If you want
it to be archived, publish it in multiple places.

I don't necessarily agree with it, and I've pretty much stopped writing on
Quora for a number of reasons, but I see where they're coming from. It might
be the best way for them to get the trust of some pretty high-status figures
to post honest answers on their platform.

~~~
cjbprime
> If you want to post on Quora and mark it _not for reproduction_, that's
> totally your choice. If you think of it this way, it makes sense that Quora
> is not letting their content get automatically distributed, since once it
> goes to Archive.org, it's no longer under the users' control to revoke
> access to the answer at any time.

This would be a totally reasonable explanation if copyright law didn't exist,
but it does. Content you create is _already_ marked "not for reproduction",
and if someone -- including the Internet Archive! -- reproduces it without
your permission, you are legally entitled to ask them to stop. The Internet
Archive won't even make you involve a lawyer.

~~~
konklone
> and if someone -- including the Internet Archive! -- reproduces it without
> your permission, you are legally entitled to ask them to stop. The Internet
> Archive won't even make you involve a lawyer.

That's right.

And this is important, because the Archive, like everyone else, is subject to
copyright law. What Quora is asking for is something more: an API that allows
them to go in, without any sort of human process or judgment, and sync up the
Archive's records with what Quora wants those records to be. That's much
different, and much worse.

~~~
webmaven
Hey, I'm the random guy that asked you to answer on Quora. How I found you
isn't very mysterious, I just asked all the folks listed here:
[http://18f.gsa.gov](http://18f.gsa.gov) if I could easily identify a Quora
profile.

I asked because a friend of mine recently joined 18F, I like what your team is
doing, so I created the question as an attempt to get more attention for you
guys. Just consider the resulting page a form of advertising ephemera. Sites
on the Internet should aspire to be more, but Quora doesn't.

~~~
konklone
> Hey, I'm the random guy that asked you to answer on Quora. How I found you
> isn't very mysterious, I just asked all the folks listed here:
> [http://18f.gsa.gov](http://18f.gsa.gov) if I could easily identify a Quora
> profile.

And hopefully it's clear in my post that I'm really glad you did! :) It really
is a good artifact -- which is exactly why I get so mad that it's not being
preserved the way it should be.

~~~
webmaven
Oh good, so we're still cool. :-)

------
MarcBodnick
The reason we opt of the wayback machine is because this decision lets writers
change their mind whether to have an answer published, or change their mind
whether to use their name in authoring an answer (i.e., vs. making it
anonymous).

People share a lot of sensitive material on Quora - controversial political
views, workplace gossip and compensation, and negative opinions held of
companies. Over many years, as they change jobs or change their views, it is
important that they can delete or anonymize their previously-written answers.

I know from first-hand experience that Quora writers sometimes decide to go
anonymous after they've shared something sensitive. I do this myself from time
to time, and I appreciate the option to make that change; this option gives me
more comfort in sharing what I know about sensitive topics.

~~~
elpachuco
Maybe use the same solution as Hacker News: Allow users for a limited time to
make changes, even delete their answers. Once that time expires make the
question accessible to the wayback machine crawlers.

Other than that if users don't want to be associated with something they said
in the past to an audience, maybe they shouldn't be saying it at all.

~~~
georgemcbay
"maybe they shouldn't be saying it at all."

I agree with you in the general case (as a 41 year old). But as someone who
was once a stupid teenager, I sure am glad that while I used the Internet back
then most of the stupid things I said on it were/are pseudo-anonymized behind
"handles", which is something that is far more difficult to do these days.

(Not sure how much this applies to Quora, though).

~~~
Shog9
I know someone whose Quora account was disabled a while back because he
refused to use his "real name".

No idea if they still have that policy; my own account is evidence that they
don't enforce it across the board (and really how could they?), but if it's
still nominally in place then that leaves active users forced to choose
between using a pseudonym (and living in fear that access to their account
will be stripped from them) or using a name that can potentially be used to
identify them in other contexts (and living in fear that being candid will
come back to bite them later in life).

Not a particularly good decision to force on someone, IMHO - even if you do
promise them an "out" by letting them retroactively self-censor.

~~~
thomasfoster96
They still have that policy. There have certainly been issues with it because
there are international users (Quora still struggles to cater for users
outside US/UK/Australia, though their recent efforts to connect with Indian
users are going well) who might have a 'western name' and 'transliterated'
name, and the policy sort of breaks down.

I suppose Quora thinks that anonymity will be good enough, but pseudonyms
might prove to better in 90% of cases. I think that probably 9 out of 10 uses
of anonymity that I've seen on Quora weren't really necessary.

------
ConfuciusSay
"They block archive.org spiders" is like reason 329 on the list of reasons why
Quora is a shit website.

------
bdcravens
My experience with Quora is that it's mostly "pitch spam". Ask any question,
like, "What's the best Ruby on Rails continuous integration solution?", and
rather than get the wisdom of the masses, you'll get founders of CI solutions
expounding. (To be clear, I'm more or less cool with content marketing, but
Quora's value prop doesn't match up with reality often)

------
swyman
Maybe "there must be an everlasting, immutable record of everything anyone has
ever written or shared on the Internet, regardless of when it was written, the
state of mind of the author, or how that author's (or society's) views have
evolved over time" is not a nuanced enough point of view.

------
Eliezer
Speaking as someone whose writings as a teenagers are often dragged up by
Internet trolls with no disclaimer about when they were written, I find myself
extremely, extremely sympathetic to Quora here.

~~~
amirmc
Are those teenage writings being dragged up specifically via the wayback
machine? Did you try removing/changing them only to be thwarted by 3rd parties
who'd made copies of the old material?

You may be sympathetic but I'm guessing that this situation is not really
comparable.

~~~
Eliezer
Yep. Wayback machine specifically, on sites whose robots.txt I can no longer
control, and I'm sure the trolls have hard copies by now.

------
spindritf
_So, Quora 's rationale for blocking the Internet Archive is that Quora can't
go back and automatically rewrite history whenever one of its users wants to._

It's the same rationale that EU courts used to make Google remove search
results on user's request. Many people think like that apparently. It had
defenders even here.

~~~
seanflyon
A rational could be perfectly legitimate for deciding to not give someone
information, but horribly inappropriate for forcing someone else to not give
out information.

~~~
spindritf
Google ruling is not about not giving them information but about stopping
Google from linking to already published articles for some keywords.

~~~
seanflyon
The link itself is information. The ruling is very clearly about preventing
Google from giving people certain information in certain circumstances.

------
timClicks
This article argues (quite persuasively IMO) that Quora should be allowing the
Internet Archive to index the site. It explores the validity argument that
Quora makes on its robots.txt, that indexing would prevent question
respondents to later turn their answers to anonymous answers.

I agree with the author that there is a real risk of this massive cultural
trove of information to be completely dis-established on the basis of a
management decision or financial collapse.

A possible response from Quora qould be to offer dumps to various archives,
e.g. Library of Congress. This should allow them to maintain their commercial
interests.

~~~
thomasfoster96
Quora did recently shut down the private blog feature they had, and a dump was
exactly what they did.

------
choppaface
A few years ago when Google was offering $1m+ stock to counter employees going
to Facebook, some people leaked names on Quora but then promptly deleted it.
This event is likely one that influenced Quora's interests in this matter.

Another factor that likely influenced this decision is that Quora has slowly
made some content available to logged-out/anon users. Some sensitive answers
written before this product change (e.g. answers on sensitive health issues)
were likely written without consideration for these product changes and Quora
wanted to ensure user trust could be retained.

------
cportela
I'm not a huge fan, but I do like the content they email me sometimes.

I'm not sure what I'm missing, but I've seen tons of anti-quora stuff on
Hacker News in the past month or so. There was this, another article about VCs
who think quora is dumb, and some other posts that basically think the same
thing as linked.

Are they arrogant or assholes in person? There are tons of companies who do
nothing and have no value and are loved, while they have built something of
value to users, or at least I've found great answers to things that I had
questions on.

------
qq66
The thing that initially attracted me to Quora (to the point of being one of
their power writers in 2012) is that it's a way to publish things online that
feel evergreen, without having to worry about maintaining or marketing a
personal blog. My engagement with the site has declined a lot, but I still can
see that people are reading the stuff I wrote several years ago, which doesn't
happen with forums like this one, or with an untended blog.

~~~
viksit
Good point - the reason for that is probably that as indexing and search
systems go, Quora has done an exceptionally good job in on site retrieval of
information as well on SEO - their autocomplete+search feature is especially
well done.

HN atleast doesn't have the same visibility into the discussion threads that
thrive here.

------
aikah
Funny how when I look for a technical answer to a problem on Google Quora
never shows up ? while i get dozens of answers from SO.

Quora could have been so much more than it is, it doesnt look very successfull
to me,because of stupid choices.

~~~
Shog9
To be fair, Quora has made very little effort to compete in SO's area. In a
sense, both sites were created to solve entirely different problems, albeit
problems that traditionally occur in the same space...

\- SO is the answer to the question, "How can we keep useful technical
information from being scattered among forum chatter?"

\- Quora is the answer to the question, "How can we keep interesting forum
chatter from being scattered among... less interesting forum chatter?"

There are countless other takes on both of these ideas, of course. Sites like
E2 and K5 could be considered spiritual ancestors, while ExpertsExchange
clearly had a much more direct influence on the designs of both SO and Quora.
It'll be interesting to see which one folks still remember in 10 years... And
what then-current systems have learned from them.

------
unicornporn
Just a note... Don't go to Stockholm to see that fancy "wall of knowledge".
That image description is so deceiving. As a Stockholmer I instinctively
thought to myself: WTF. Turns out it's a CG concept.

------
nedwin
How has Quora changed since they went into YCombinator recently?

------
jusben1369
"and it's definitely not how the Internet works" \- how do you define how the
internet works? Quora's been completely transparent and consistent about this
approach from day 1. You don't have to like it. You don't have to participate.
this feels like someone throwing a tantrum because Quora isn't behaving in the
way _you want them to_. I kind of figure that "the way the Internet works" is
it allows for a whole host of different sites, services and commercialization
strategies and we engage with platforms and services freely based on the value
vs cost analysis.

------
BigChiefSmokem
Why use Quora when you have StackExchange?

Quora died the day they put the pay wall up. Also you can't post anonymously.
It's fail after fail with me, it's unfortunate because I enjoyed the beta
version of the site way back when.

~~~
clebio
Can you post anonymously on StackExchange (honest question)?

~~~
fabian2k
For most sites (Stack Overflow is one of the exceptions) you can simply ask a
question without ever registering. Unlike Quora, SE doesn't have anything like
a real name policy, you never have to give them your real name.

~~~
clebio
Thank you. I use SO a fair bit, so maybe that's why I didn't realize the other
SE sites are more permissive.

------
zallarak
I can somewhat empathize with the author of this article because in the end,
transparency and willingness to share knowledge are historically good things
to do.

However, I also respect Quora's commitment to user privacy and requests to
delete content. Content creators power Quora's success, and to me it signals
appreciation on Quora's part to watch out for them.

I have gotten a significant amount of utility from Quora for free in the form
of it answering questions I had and thought provoking content. Its a bit
hyperbolic to say Quora keeps the world's knowledge for itself.

------
ryandrake
I think we're going to find (eventually, as people get bitten) is that
[forever searchability] + [real name policy] + [non-deletable content] will =
abundant caution to the point of self-censorship, reducing the overall quality
of user-generated discussions.

I know I self-censor a lot on any platform that requires a real name (or on
those like HN where I choose to use mine). Who knows what (today
uncontroversial) opinions will be considered taboo, criminally weird, or
treasonous in 40 years time? I need to make sure I can run for president one
day, you know.

------
swang
IA's spider respects META tags in the HTML right? Quora should prevent
archiving of a page using the tags until maybe a couple months after the last
person has responded, then allow the page to be archived by removing any META
tags related to archiving.

AFAIK, noarchive still allows indexing of the page, which means the robot
should realize the page is there and archive it during its next run.

------
dkarapetyan
I highly recommend Scott Hanselman's essay on the finiteness of the number of
keystrokes you have in a lifetime:
[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/DoTheyDeserveTheGiftOfYourKeys...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/DoTheyDeserveTheGiftOfYourKeystrokes.aspx).
Draw your own conclusions about putting knowledge inside walled gardens.

------
jordanpg
"Quora is a free service built on venture capital that will need to monetize
its users over the next couple years, and wouldn't you know, they really want
you visit quora.com, and they really want you to create an account."

What are some ideas about what Quora's long-term business model might end up
being? This is the context needed to judge this article.

~~~
konklone
> What are some ideas about what Quora's long-term business model might end up
> being?

There's some good discussion on that on, how about that, Quora:
[https://www.quora.com/What-could-Quoras-long-term-
business-p...](https://www.quora.com/What-could-Quoras-long-term-business-
plan-be)

------
rpm33
I was an early adopter of Quora and consume a lot of content on it. I think it
is a great place to get curated answers for questions I think are interesting.
I have taken a lot of care in cutting out the noise in Quora and that has
helped me a lot in getting some high quality content in my inbox.

------
bvaldivielso
What I see is that quora cares about its users more that it cares about "how
the internet works".

Is that that awful?

------
quadrangle
Nobody should ever contribute content to proprietary resources. The community
should own the content the community generates. Wikimedia stuff and Stack
Exchange stuff is all CC-BY-SA licensed. We should contribute to those things!
Screw Quora!!

------
drivingmenuts
> Quora is not a private communications network.

Issues of marketing aside, if it has a login and a password, it is a private
network.

If I publish on the open web, then pretty much what I say is public
information. If I publish on a private network, I am turning that information
over to them to do as they will, unless the ToS says I retain control.

I don't feel particularly bad that the Internet Archive is unable to catalog
things that are behind closed doors, regardless of the reasoning behind
closing the door.

And given the propensity for people to (rightly or wrongly) attack others by
dredging up things long in the past, yet posted on the net, I'm not sure I
disagree with Quora.

------
tyang
I write a lot on Quora and respectfully disagree with OP here.

I like the fact that I can delete my questions or answers from time to time.

It's my content. Not the Internet's.

If I change my mind about something I wrote, I want to be able to edit it and
delete it.

Some of my best answers are ones I edited many times over time. I use Quora
and its readers to help me improve and correct my answers. The first draft is
often not that great. Quora reduces the risk for me to submit my answer and
post it.

I understand there are other sites where my content would be more public and
permanent and I share on there too. But I often write and re-write on Quora
before sharing my content to other sites.

~~~
jtheory
This makes sense; but it's also not quite what's under discussion.

No one's asking for you to be no longer able to edit questions.

If Quora went offline, archive.org by default would show the last-archived
version of that page -- i.e., your final, edited answer. It would also let
people roll back and see previous versions of that page -- which Quora _also_
lets them do.

If you realize you wrote a response that on second thought you want deleted,
you can currently delete it from Quora directly. If archive.org were allowed
access, you'd have to _also_ request deletion from there, but you're allowed
to do that as well.

I agree that it's your content, not the internet's, and archive.org generally
agrees with that too; but they're interested in rescuing the data that should
be rescued, if Quora goes offline tomorrow. With them currently blocked, if
you don't have local copies of your best, carefully-edited answers, they'll
just be gone if Quora's business model doesn't work out.

~~~
tyang
Wasn't aware one could ask archive.org to delete one's content, so thanks for
that.

Still worth it for me to have Quora be somewhat "closed."

Because my initial answers aren't so public and the signal to noise ratio in
the comments to my answers is higher than other places.

I get a lot of reverse inquiry from folks who find me on Twitter, where I
share a lot of Quora content.

So I don't care that much that Quora isn't that searchable on Google, etc.

Quora works great for some of us.

Quora's not for everyone.

Neither is Facebook (teens dropping like flies), reddit (low percentage of
women), etc.

------
muyuu
A few times I've wanted to chime in with expert answers in my field and they
didn't let me without giving my real name and personal data. So I didn't.

~~~
1a2a3a4a
You can answer anonymously, that's the whole reason they're not letting the
time machine index their site--so you can go anon later if you want to. You
can also answer the question initially as anonymous.

~~~
muyuu
Nope, you can tag yourself "anonymous" but they still want you to register
with real data which I don't trust them to have.

------
ddingus
I currently use Quora. It's closed nature has some disadvantages, though
writers clearly can choose to publish openly. Many of those can be mitigated.

Everything is logged. Changes, edits, whatever are all presented to all users,
who can see what happened and who did it over time. I think that's a nice
feature.

One thing Quora has going for it is the Be Nice, Be Respectful Policy.

In terms of technical knowledge, the site varies. In terms of advice, or
something one might call wisdom, it ranges from good to really great. There
are some garbage answers mixed in there, but it's not hard to see and have a
dialog about the good stuff.

Notably, Quora is a place where people can share themselves and their
experiences unabashedly. Women have had some trouble there, as have some other
regular targets of discrimination, stalking, etc... Quora has dealt with those
quickly and is very, very interested in people not having any worries about
discussions related to minority, gay, women, trans, and other sensitive
topics.

Some of those discussions, advice, information are very high quality, frank,
real, and I've personally contributed to some of that dialog in ways that did
some material good for people really struggling, or fearful, unaware of their
options, or possible outcomes.

While not perfect, the actions so far have produced some notable results. I am
eager to see how Quora plays out, because having that kind of dialog and the
tools given to users to manage conflicts and provide themselves and others
"outs" to what would otherwise be messy, troll ridden discussion is something
many people would value, and it's something missing from an awful lot of
discussion online.

Some of us do share technical information. A lot of us share insight and
experience or perspective that can be coupled with technical information. This
has value too, and it's a little different from the more structured and highly
technical Stack Exchange, and from the more noisy, often difficult to pick
through general message board or forum dialog. This niche is also something
I'm watching with interest.

There are some nice things too. One is non-English speakers coming to add
questions or participate in answers or comments. People can help by making
edits, or in some cases, by translating for them. I've done a few of those.
Quora has a few students learning English on the site, and they ask often
intriguing, challenging and notable questions about the language and use. Over
time, that could be a great resource.

I think "sharing knowledge" is somewhat misunderstood. In a general sense, who
we are, what our experiences have been, etc... are knowledge as much as math,
facts, technical data is. The overall norms for discussion at Quora allow for
very frank, real dialog. This can be worth a lot.

Go and search on how to give an awesome BJ, for example. A gay man answered
that with such clarity and perfection, it's kind of amazing really. Or search
on women in tech. Ladies there are posting up a lot of real experiences and
advice that might be hard to come by and interact around elsewhere.

I could give a lot of other examples.

So far, I like Quora. I give it some time, and so far, I've gotten some good
value in return. Some time is going to be required to see the more subtle
aspects of Quora play out and then we might better understand where the value
is.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Looks like an even more elitist Wikipedia, if that is physically possible.

~~~
ddingus
Maybe. It really doesn't come off as Wikipedia.

What it does do is allow for structured conversations about a lot of things.
The question answer, and in particular one answer only per user, format seems
to focus people into their primary thoughts about something.

This has some nice value. Great advice in the relationship section, for
example. There are also some very good instructional answers dealing with
concepts of many kinds.

There is some elitism, but it's not all bad. Like I said, the norms where
people can come and share unabashedly is a high value norm, and it's somewhat
elite on that basis. I find that notable and valuable personally.

------
SeanDav
I browse Quora occasionally - it is a great resource for trivial information
and some entertaining content, but for serious work it is very far from being
at the top of my list of destinations.

------
yalogin
To me quora has always been and will be the company that n Ed not exist. There
might be some very niche need it fills but does not warrant the funding and
hype. It could of cours b justifiable as a hobby project.

------
no_future
I don't understand why Quora requires signup to JUST VIEW the questions and
answers? How do people doing nothing but viewing it affect the site in any
way, aside from getting it more pageviews, which is generally a good thing? I
understand having an account to contribute, but just to view?

