Why I was wrong about Quora as a blogging service …

January 30, 2011 By Robert Scoble

I must apologize to Dave Winer. He warned me about supporting services that aren’t the open web and I wasn’t willing to listen to him a month ago, because I was infatuated with a cool new service that lots of insiders were supporting.

I’ve seen a LOT of discussion about Quora in the past few weeks since I wrote it could be the biggest blogging innovation in the past decade. GigaOm even wrote a post asking whether it was worth the more than $80 million the investors are hoping it’s worth.

Turns out I was totally wrong. It’s a horrid service for blogging, where you want to put some personality into answers. It’s just fine for a QA site, but we already have lots of those and, in fact, the competitors in this space are starting to react. Mahalo just released a new version that has been getting lots of praise and at DLD I met the CEO of Answers.com and he said to expect a major update from his service (which has 1000x more users). Stack Exchange is growing faster than Quora and has many many times more questions and answers, plus I’ve found the answers are broader in reach, and deeper in quality (especially for programmers).

Even worse, I’m getting dozens of emails from people pissed that their questions have been changed, their answers marked “not helpful,” or that they got kicked off the service altogether. Admittedly one of the things I really love about the service is there is very little, if any, spam and everyone is forced to use their real name, but lots of people want to talk about their business or not use their real names. Mashable, for instance, has the most followers on the service but they’ve been banned because brands aren’t allowed on Quora. Funny that some people with obviously fake names haven’t been deleted yet, though.

These are all things that are allowed on blogs, even welcomed, and no one can downvote my blogs here.

Why?

Because if you gather a group that doesn’t like you, or your writings, for some reason, you can get voted down, which effectively makes your answer disappear. See this post, for instance. As of right now my answer is voted down, even though it got 33 upvotes and lots of “great post” comments on Twitter and under the post itself. In fact, no one explained why the post got downvoted in the comments — which means that people who leave answers are left scratching their heads wondering “what did I do wrong?” Most just leave the system, not to return.

So, does this matter to the long term relevance of the system? Yes.

I’m watching hundreds of topics and not seeing the influx of new users and new questions that this service needs to become worth $100 million so that investors will make out.

It is a fun place to see answers by Steve Case and other technology insiders, but it just isn’t an interesting place to participate and until Quora fixes this moderation problem, and puts very clear answers onto why something was downvoted, it just isn’t the kind of place that I can recommend supporting.

Sorry, Dave, you were right and I was wrong.

UPDATE: How would I fix this? Turns out the question could have been collapsed by a reviewer (who isn’t paid by Quora, but given “special powers”). To fix this problem the reviewer’s name should be included on the collapsed answer, along with the reason why it was collapsed. There also should be a way to contest/appeal the downvote. Either way, whenever a question gets collapsed it should be very clear why, who did it, and what process the answerer can go through to change the answer to respond to the criticism, and get it upvoted again.

Filed Under: Web

http://www.gautamblogs.com Gautam Ghosh

Reminds one of Digg, in some ways, doesn’t it?

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

Sure does!
http://www.centernetworks.com centernetworks

Gautum – you just killed the post I have half done last week

Quora IS the new digg – replace the “headline” on Digg with the “Question” on Quora. Replace the “comments” on Digg with the “answers” on Quora.

And it’s interesting because I asked a top Quora user about the idea that content can be changed – it was a shock to me (I don’t use the service currently). I kept saying to myself – why would anyone want to write a nice, in-depth answer only to have it edited by someone he or she doesn’t even know.

Also – when you write on Quora, it seems you are basically saying “sure x blog, scrape my whole post, put it on your blog, make money on it and share nothing with me” – at least with a blog, that doesn’t happen as often.

I also wonder when you have a blog as widely read and as powerful as Scobleizer, when you post on Quora, do you miss sharing your thoughts with so many others who won’t see it on Q? I know you share a lot of your answers on Twitter so maybe people find them that way.

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

Yeah, I didn’t worry about my audience here. In fact, I found it freeing because I could answer questions that don’t fit into my blog, like about cigars, or other topics that don’t fit into the tech blog corner I’ve painted myself into here.

Sorry for screwing up your post.

http://www.centernetworks.com centernetworks

lol you didn’t screw anything up – I think Quora seems to be trying something new – I don’t really follow the service that much – but it seems like they are trying a “moderated community Q&A site” which is different than many of the others.

They have done a good job of getting big names in there to answer the questions.

http://www.gautamblogs.com Gautam Ghosh

Please go ahead and finish that post Didn’t mean to kill it

While I found Quora interesting in the beginning – primarily because there was knowledge there by people who had built companies, failed and succeeded, the questions got out something from them that they hadn’t shared (either because they weren’t bloggers or due to some other reasons)

However, in the other generic spaces Quora answers are not helpful. And I am slowly getting disenchanted with the service. I still go back to discover some gems – but that’s it.
http://twitter.com/rjamestaylor Robert ^Robot Taylor

Initially, I liked having a place to write in-depth answers to a broader (not deeper, though) audience than the venerable Stack Exchange properties and my concern over ownership of my answers was mitigated by the feature listed as “Connect Blog” in the Settings. Though it only supports Tumblr and WordPress.com blogs, I thought that creating Tumblr or WordPress.com free account to then syndicate back to my personal blog would create a way for me to keep my answers as my own.

Unfortunately, when I created a WordPress.com blog for this puporse and connected it to Quora I found that this feature merely creates link bait for SEO for Quora. The only “connection” Quora makes back to your own blog is to post a tweet-style Quora headline as the title and content of the blog post with a link to Quora. Useless. Spammy. Disabled. Blogged about it (on my own blog!):

http://www.rjamestaylor.com/my-feedback-to-quora-regarding-blog-connect/

Secondly, my experience with the arcane moderation of the insiders at Quora turned me off of spending effort to craft a lengthy response on their service. It also caused me to doubt the direction of the company itself. What happened: I added a picture of myself to my personal name topic. A Product Designer at Quora edited the picture describing it as “unrelated”, which was a shock to me!

http://www.quora.com/Robert-J-Taylor-1/log

That a Product Designer for a UX-challenged product would have time to make silly, inane moderations broke my trust in the company. It wasn’t that I was offended; it was the inanity of the thing.

After the above experiences I now use Quora as I do the rest of the Interent: I look for people having questions about things related to my day job and try to be helpful. But as a place I will expend my energies to add value to Quora? Those days are over.

Anonymous

I hated the ‘link bait’ too – I stopped using that feature immediately. However, I do like Quora as whole. They have an above par user experience and personally for me – as a new entrepreuer – I found it to be valuable resource.

I do think however that Quora can likely make more money by licensing their platform rather than from the current existance of Quora.
http://vkelman-blog.blogspot.com/ vkelman

rjamestaylor,
Although it’s an off-topic, let me note that WordPress – Google Buzz integration actually implements what you said Quora is failing to implement: comments are identical, instantly syncronised and visible on both WordPress post and corresponding Buzz thread.

http://jasonkeath.com jakrose

Except there is less incentive to massively game Quora. Digg had massive traffic to push in a direction. Real money is there. Quora has moderate ego boosting to push. I am sure there is gaming, but I think the lack of monetary end goals keeps the community in check more than Digg use to pretend to do.
http://www.tuberankings.com Chris Lang

Man, you beat me to that comment Gautam!. Yeah, Digg where a bury is worth 100 Diggs and a small malicious group can alter results even though normal users real did like it.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures mkrigsman

Digg redux — if that’s the case, it becomes a waste of time.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures mkrigsman

Digg redux — if that’s the case, it becomes a waste of time.

http://twitter.com/bennyearl Ben M

Strong words from someone who has the most followers on Quora.
http://twitter.com/bennyearl Ben M

Strong words from someone who has the most followers on Quora.
http://twitter.com/jeremyjustice Jeremy

I think it could still have some usefulness to bloggers, but they need to desperately work on the integrations with blog services to truly make it a place for bloggers publicize their expertise. Agree with you completely on the moderation portion of this though. They also DESPERATELY need to instill a sense of humor into some of their admins as well…some of them are the Q&A version of the Soup Nazi.
http://geek.michaelgrace.org/ MikeGrace

Well said. Those are very valid points and I’ll continue to stick with the stackexchange family of Q&A sites.
http://twitter.com/area51research kiriappeee

heh and this is how I started off on Quora. I wanted to know why Wave was such a failure and what people understood it as. Someone marked it as a poll and closed it. I don’t care who or what but that was my first activity on Quora and whoopde doo. I use the service just for kicks or when I’ve actually finished catching up on tech news and have time to spare.
http://spoff.tumblr.com/ Mark Spoff

Ironically, it was when I posted an answer to a question about whether you were ‘killing quora’ that was subsequently deleted by a mod that I lost interest. It was a defence of sorts – but it was mainly to make the point that a forum without portfolio was doomed to fail if people started flaming other users – you in this case. I’ve run several online communities and see no good reason why the psychology of quora should be any different.
http://twitter.com/CSB Comic Strip Blogger

quora is bad and evil, Robert, stop promoting them.
http://www.eliainsider.com Elia Freedman

I am starting to wonder if the most relevant way to judge a service is to look at it in terms of whether it would survive if started outside the Valley. The Valley is just so good as an echo chamber that it seems easier to grow businesses without having wider applicability. If Quora had started in Portland or Seattle or Chicago or Austin would it still be popular and have grown the way it has?

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

Maybe, but probably not.

http://GrasshopperHerder.com Tristan Kromer

Interesting analysis. I think Quora has some big voting issues as well, but not for the reasons you list here.

On one thing in particular you’re completely right, Quora is not, “the biggest blogging innovation in the past decade.” Simply put, I don’t think it’s a blogging platform at all although I can see why you might consider it one.

I think the primary difference is in what makes a great post.

In a blog (as in the media in general,) being factual and providing valuable information is not enough to tip something into viral distribution. You have to be loved, but also hated. A controversial post which is equally loved an hated gets 70x the distribution of a mediocre post.

If it’s not somewhat controversial, it’s not worth sharing.

In Quora, those posts would be weighted equally and the post would be at the bottom of the page (or lower.)

P.S.: If you want to see something fascinating, look at OKCupid’s latest analysis. They show what we’ve all know for a long time. A girl ranked as “pretty” with an average score of 3.4 from viewers won’t get as many messages as another “interesting” girl who also has an average score of 3.4. Why? Because the interesting girl has some feature (or defect if you prefer) which some people love and some people hate.
http://mitchell.tel Anthony Mitchell

You can always come back to FriendFeed.com – even for a moment. You still have the ability to block a spammer off one thread and have them vanish from all of your threads in the future. Threads can be voted up – but not down. FriendFeed is leet.

http://GrasshopperHerder.com Tristan Kromer

Hi Anthony,

I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with long vs. short posts on Quora and long seems to win out overall. I think it’s because it takes more effort to scroll down and read the rest of the posts. Possibly also there’s an assumption that, “if someone spent this much time writing it, it must be correct.”

Maria Umar

I am a Quora enthusiast and would really like to see what it grows into. But of course it does have some faults. As one person commented above, the moderators lack a sense of humor. This post here put the fear of God in me: http://www.quora.com/Lucretia-M-Pruitt/Welcome-to-Quora-Do-Yourself-a-Favor-Slow-Down. Although the writer came back with another post apologizing for her tone, the damage was already done. It confused me that something like this can be posted on Quora and not get outvoted into oblivion but answers with just a bit of personality (read as “humor” and “wit”) that do not offend anyone are chucked out. Having said that, I have found Quora to be really helpful. I am working on a startup (an all-women virtual firm selling digital services) and I have a lot of questions about the how, what and when of my business venture and the community at Quora has been extremely helpful. These are people who have been there, done that, and are experts in their fields. Let’s cut Quora some slack and give it a chance to show us what it can really do.

http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

The post you cited had a very interesting path. It started with me, being utterly annoyed with some old friends who had come over to Quora in the “post Christmas rush” and were being incredibly spammy.
At the time I wrote it? There were 150 people “following” me on Quora. All of whom have known me either in person and/or online for years. Most of whom would’ve shrugged and taken the value out of the bitchiness and moved on.
I posted it because it said (at the top) “Post something to your Followers” – and naively I believed that’s exactly what I was doing.
What neither I (nor anybody else) really expected was that it would gain a life of its own. The speed with which it propagated was a little startling. Quora has a much faster viral component than any other site I’ve ever been on. Should I have expected it? Maybe. But it was a lesson well learned.
I’m sorry that it “put the fear of God” into you. I wrestled for a long time over whether or not to go and edit out any of the abrasive language or tone. In the end, I didn’t feel right editing it after so many people had voted on it. But I did go back and add links to helpful Quora posts that would probably better serve a new user.
Again, I apologize to those who were offended or put off by it. But please don’t take that particular post as representative of Quora. It’s not – there are some really amazing people on there.
Best, LMP

Maria Umar

Everyone has the right to their opinion and also to how they want to express themselves. My anger with your post was not about the tone, it was annoyance at the fact that it got the approval of so many people that I have good reason to believe are closely associated with Quora despite the very generous sprinkling of personality but if someone else tries to answer a question with just a bit of, let’s say wit, for lack of a better word, it gets outvoted. Quora was never a blogging platform but a member to member exchange community. I feel the only person who has the right to vote for an answer is the person who asked it. If I find ask a question I should be the one to decide if an answer was helpful or not. I don’t mind getting edited – I am a non-native speaker of English so I tend to to be not as clear with what I am saying or asking as a native speaker can be. That’s perfectly OK. But to see people’s replies getting collapsed just because they answered something in their own particular style is irksome. This is a knowledge/information exchange community and if I can not exchange anything with my followers or with other members without the fear of offending with my style of writing then it is something that Team Quora should be wary of as its goign to cost them members.
Having said that, I use Quora as much as I use Facebook and that’s really saying something. Have learned a lot, am learning a lot. And am excited to see what Quora becomes.

Anonymous

Keep in mind that Lucretia’s post was just that, a post, and not an answer. Voting for posts spreads them through Quora, but it doesn’t have any other ranking effect, as far as I can tell, against other posts.

Answers are ranked differently and they are held to different standards.

Susan P.

Another reason I dislike several of these Q&A services is that in desperation their managers/sales/moderators go to LinkedIn groups and ‘pose’ questions. When responded to, the respondent received an email request to please copy and paste their answer over to the Q&A site. This is a poor process and a ‘cheat’ of sorts and actually shows that questions are better asked on bigger social sites and that these pure Q&A’s have little to offer in order to retain users. Further, how many questions do you answer before you feel like a little payment is due. I actually think this another serious issue.

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

Yup, I answered 400 questions on the service. There is something to that, where people who are putting in the time get treated like that.

Bill

Robert, it’s very impressive that you are/were open-minded enough to be shifted on this topic. You had had me believing that Quora was a new blogging platform – and it still does have some very strong attributes of that – but your new thinking is great. Even bigger however is your ability to shift and openly allow and admit new learning. Thanks! Bill
http://www.motmaitre.com Motmaitre

I think you mean you gave your opinions. Which is one thing undermining Quora (there are several). When you answer a question like What should Larry Page do at Google, your opinion is not an authoritative answer. It’s just one person’s view. And you are not an expert on business strategy. When Quora becomes a compendium of personal opinions it becomes a forum, not a Q&A site.

http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

Except that opinion is the reason people go to Quora. Without opinion, it’s just data. You can get data with a Google or Wikipedia search.
The *only* compelling argument for something like Quora is that you have opinions from people who are worth listening to.

http://www.motmaitre.com Motmaitre

I’m sorry, but that is absolute nonsense. The contrast is not opinion vs.
data, it is opinion vs, fact, or at least expert knowledge. A Q&A site is
where you go to get an answer from someone who for a fact knows more than
you do. When you start getting opinions from people who are not more
qualified than you to opine, you just get noise. I could go to a bar and ask
any drunk what Google’s strategy should be, and his opinion is just as valid
as Scoble’s.
http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

I’m afraid you and I go to Quora for different reasons. I find there to be no “factual” answer to the majority of the questions asked there. If you look at the question that Robert was pointing out? It requires an opinion. A personal assessment of whether or not Davos is a “waste of money.”
That requires a subjective viewpoint and is the kind of *data* or “fact” that you won’t find on Wikipedia and is the entire point of crowdsourcing such an answer.
The premise behind all of the validation on Quora – such as upvotes, endorsement, reputation and the use of real names – is designed to help you determine whether and answer from Scoble differs much from the “drunk in the bar”.
If your belief is that opinions are as valid from one person as the next? You won’t derive much benefit from a site that clearly is designed on the opposite premise.
http://www.motmaitre.com Motmaitre

If that is indeed the purpose of Quora, then it has been perceptually
mispositioned. It is not a Q&A site, it is a discussion forum. I.e. a place
where anyone can float a topic, and have everyone weigh in with their
opinion.

However, this contradicts all the talk about ‘quality’. After all, if it is
just somebody’s subjective opinion, what is the measure of quality? Also,
what is the basis of editing answers if that answer is just an opinion?
Everybody’s subjective opinion is ‘correct’ from where they stand.

This I think goes to the heart of why Quora is doomed for serious failure:
it is not sure what it wants to be. It is not a Wiki, because people post
under their real names, and so are likely to get offended when their answers
are edited (on Wikipedia, people don;t get hurt by this, except of course
the hardcore obsessives). It is not a Q&A site, as evinced by the number of
opinionated answers. Yet it is not fully a forum, because you don’t have
peoples’ answers being edited or voted on on a forum.

What need does it fill? Not reasearch, and not conversation. Maybe the next
question on Quora should be “What is Quora?”

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

Absolutely wrong, actually. At Microsoft my final title was “strategist.” And I’ve interviewed thousands of business people. I know more about business strategy than most people.

http://www.motmaitre.com Motmaitre

“I know more about business strategy than most anyone on Quora”

That astonishingly arrogant and pompous statement shows how little you
actually know about strategy. First, anyone with training and experience in
strategy understands the management of uncertainty and incomplete
information and would not make such a definitive statement.

You don’t know everyone on Quora. You don’t know what everyone on Quora
knows. So such a statement demonstrates a level of hubris that would be
fatal in anyone responsible for business strategy.

You also show ignorance of one of the pitfalls of strategic management:
perceptual biases, specifically the overconfidence bias (look it up,
strategist). Its when business managers make bad decisions because they
assume they know more than they do. You are a blogger whose popularity is
going to his head, causing him to feel he has expertise outside his core
competence.

At Microsoft my final title was “strategist.”

Yes, I’m familiar with those empty titles, usually given to cubicle-dwellers
whose job is to sit in on meetings where people debate what to do about a
product. I understand Microsoft didn’t hire you because of your Ivy League
business education, management experience or strategy consulting background.
You were basically an evangelist.

“I’ve interviewed thousands of business people.”

Really? Well, I’ve watched thousands of boxing matches so I must be ready to
become world champion. And I’ve watched thousands of porn clips so I must be
the world’s greatest lover. Dude, take it from someone who actually wwent to
a top business school- you don;t know strategy. Your recommendations to
Google were a laundry list of product features you would like as a tech
person. There was no reference to the competitive landscape, Google’s
overriding mission, core competencies, internal management structure, or how
their product or business portfolio should ride emerging opportunities and
deal with extant threats. Anyone with actual strategic training could see
you were a layman blowing smoke.
http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

Most people on Quora don’t match your description of them. Not everyone on Quora is Steve Case. It might be arrogant to say, but who the hell made YOU a judge of who has business strategy expertise or not?

http://www.recruitinganimal.com RecruitingANIMAL

“How many questions do you answer before a little payment is due.”

Good question, Susan. I’ve wondered this about all social media networks. The content is user-generated but the profits are not shared.

http://twitter.com/joplomacedo Joao Macedo

Networks provide the infrastructure. Users provide the content.
Networks get the profit. Users get the authority (which can then use it for profit)

Its a win-win. If you believe you get nothing out of creating content on those networks then perhaps you should stop doing it.
http://paulgailey.com Paul Gailey

the karma imbalance of creating content for other networks is a common sentiment, that is the price of free these days.

guest

Of course you are wrong. First and foremost, it is not a blogging service.

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

I realize that now, but it has a lot of blogging attributes. If it’s just a QA service it doesn’t deserve the hype it’s getting.

http://GrasshopperHerder.com Tristan Kromer

Hype is always…well…hype.

It would be a great idea if they’d turn off the “post” feature which does make it a lot more like a blogging platform and just focus a really great Q&A platform.

http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

Despite my early use of the “post” function, I agree completely. I have a blog if I want to blog.
http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

Despite my early use of the “post” function, I agree completely. I have a blog if I want to blog.

http://twitter.com/jyarmis Jonathan L. Yarmis

Clearly it’s not a blogging site and I agree that as a Q&A site it doesn’t deserve the hype (nor does any Q&A service fundamentally). Where, however, I see Quora as having massive potential is as a bottoms-up knowledge management system. While there are flaws with the moderation and voting and editing, the precise fact that these capabilities exist is in my mind what sets it apart from a Q&A platform. I think they could be on to something big here. http://doctordisruptive.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/quora-the-winning-formula-for-knowledge-management/

http://vkelman-blog.blogspot.com/ vkelman

Sure, you’re right. Quora is not a blogging service, as Facebook is not a blogging service, Twitter is not, and Google Buzz is not. Not understanding it is a key for misuse and then bashing – that’s what so many “power users”, as Chris Lang calls them, are guilty off.

A wonderful article by Dave Winer http://scripting.com/stories/2011/01/04/whatIMeanByTheOpenWeb.html clearly explains it. The answer by Jeremy Chone on “Is Robert Scoble right about acknowledging he was wrong about Quora?” Quora thread http://goo.gl/ehZFN perfectly prooves it too.

P.S. I’m really thankful for Robert Scoble for letting know about Dave Winer.

http://specialbrands.net/ redhat

I’ve found Quora a place to get comments and quotes from technology insiders on subjects that I blog about, something that they would often not devote an entire post to. I like Quora for the questions I follow and read all the opinions, whether these have been hidden or not.

I realize that these are not the answers to the Question, but somebody’s subjective opinion and that some people really think that somebodies subjective opinion is not valuable so they press “Not Helpful,” which is their subjective opinion.

I’ve currently been working on a project which incorporates the fact that people’s comments and scores are subjective and which devines what an objective truth might be based on multiple factors. Which means people are weighted by the quality of their opinions and previous evaluation of other people’s opinions. This might be a solution for Quora.

Another way to go is /. meta moderation, if people are giving poor feedback then they can’t give feedback as often as when their feedback is good. Which may lead to more constructive feedback.
http://www.yackyack.co.uk robwatts

I’m with you on the mod thing Robert, they need to get a grip – That said, I still think it’s a quality piece of work that adds genuine value. I’ve been really impressed with the quality of a lot of the questions and indeed answers too.

I guess in some respects there’s always a problem with mods and ‘power’, it often goes to their heads and they assume this superior type view acting on the strictest interpretation of ‘the rules’ to the detriment of the user. DMOZ (had) and most other forums have similar problems with egos in the room. I’m yet to see a system yet that’s conquered the ego problem, in fact I have more faith in the power of the community than any single individuals.

As the commenter above says, his first question on their got dinged and for him, that was that. I had a similar experience on the Huffington post and said to myself wow, ok that’s the last time I invest 20 minutes of my time in you bunch of jokers.

I’d like to see Quora succeed as I it’s the first Q and A site that I’ve gotten involved in that has the interest of my peers and social networks – I’m loving the ability to expand and explore what it offers and most certainly tip my hat to them.

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

I don’t mind if I get downvoted or my answer marked as “not helpful” if it meets three conditions:

1. I know who voted me down.
2. If I know why.
3. If I have an opportunity to change my answer and appeal the decision.

On Quora we don’t know who voted you down. I don’t know why. I don’t have an opportunity to change my answer and appeal the decision. That’s nasty all around.

http://www.yackyack.co.uk robwatts

Yep, couldn’t agree more – Current system makes it easy for ‘snipers’ to hit and run unseen. You’d like to think that the smart folks behind Quora are aware of this though. Let’s see. They need to act fast mind else…

It’s a good reminder of why other social type services (albeit completely different) don’t have this disgruntlement problem. Twitter, FB etc you can say what you like unfettered. There isn’t anyone to come along and snipe you out of the game – one doesn’t (in most cases) talk a lot of old cobblers else otherwise your friends/followers will vote w/ their feet or ignore you. Social rep counts and if you have any sense of this you’ll act accordingly. I’d say it’s a reason why they both work so well.
Upsighting

If you know who down voted you its just going lead you to a vendetta against that person more than 90% of the time. It is the nature of the beast, moderation is going to be gamed, abused and a source of constant antipathy. Of course without it, Quora is going to be spammed, turned in to a self promotion forum, and the signal to noise ratio will plummet. Moderation is a horrible approach, its just better than all the alternatives. That said it is a bad thing to have moderators with “special powers” if that is what Quora is doing. Will be constantly abused, and has been on every sevice that allows it. If you are going to allow moderation it has to be randomized through the community with meta moderation like Slashdot.

To be honest this sounds a little like, “I Love Quora and will promote it constantly as long as I’m getting huge numbers of followers and being constantly up voted by my fans”, quickly turning in to “Quora sucks because I got down voted” once.

As for Mashable being banned. I get why they did that and am OK with it. Every new social network comes out, Mashable moves in with there fan base and completely dominates it, just like they did on Buzz, Digg, etc. Mashable already has a huge megaphone, they don’t need any more and they don’t need to dominate EVERY social network. The Scolbelizer brand is nearly the same. I’d actually like a service where everyone rises and falls based on their actual participation not based on the size and “enthusiasm” of their camp following fan base giving them an instant and dominating presence. Of course if Quora doesn’t stay on the good side of Scobelizer it is probably DOOMED.
http://www.aaronklein.com/ Aaron Klein

That’s the same reason why “like” buttons are good to have and “dislike” buttons not so much (on Facebook, Disqus, etc.).

The “like” button signals “I agree and have nothing to add”

The “dislike” button (or a vote-down) allows someone to block or oppose something without stating why.

It should take more than a single mouse click to be disagreeable.

http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

A very good point. While I’ve wanted a ‘dislike the object of the post, not the post itself’ button on Facebook forever (really? Who “likes” bad news?) I think there’s something important about not allowing abuse.
Maybe you only have 3 dislikes a week? a month? hm.

http://www.aaronklein.com/ Aaron Klein

I just think you should have to say WHY. Hence it should just be a comment.
http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

I understand that rationale. The thing is, the reason we have all of these ‘thumbs up’ and ‘like’ and ‘up/down arrow’ things is that it’s pretty much a ‘one click and done’ deal. I know when I’m sharing something on Facebook via a “Like” – there’s a little description after it. It says “Lucretia Likes Mary’s post about baby ducklings saved!” or something silly like that. It’s fast and to the point.
I think if required to post a comment every time someone wanted to just share something? Facebook would have far less interaction.
There’s something to be said for ease of use.

http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

A very good point. While I’ve wanted a ‘dislike the object of the post, not the post itself’ button on Facebook forever (really? Who “likes” bad news?) I think there’s something important about not allowing abuse.
Maybe you only have 3 dislikes a week? a month? hm.

http://twitter.com/lucaslain Lucas Lain

That seems a really difficult problem to solve. Imagine you’re 36 downvotes, and notifying them about you question ‘update’. I think it could damage the simplicity of the site.
What about posting another question? can you do that?

http://twitter.com/patricelamothe Patrice Lamothe

Think Quora’s key issues is that its social system is based on a complex algorithm rather than a set of clear human-level rules.

On the one hand, it gives some initial advantages to the service
– It looks immediatly usefull and relevant
– It creates a “magical feeling” of immediate coordination between people that dont know each other

On the other hand, since no-one understand how their feed is really build, nor what their questions and answers really become, it creates a set of much deeper issues
– People don’t feel they own their contributions, since they can’t predict their fate
– People can’t generate their own rules or practices (think about an early Twitter without RT or @…)
– Quora’s team itself will find it more and more difficult to understand how its own system is working, taking the risk to make a lot of bad decisions regarding its own algo

Growing frustration about votes, ownership and other such items are a consequence of this choice of automated vs human curation.

The value of Open Web systems is not only the ownership of the data itself, its the understanding of the way the data is built and shared.
http://twitter.com/Vaiebhav Vaiebhav

Let’s not be too quick to disregard Q. While Scobleizer’s concerns are real, I see value in answers being moderated, to improve user experience. Hubpages use a similar model, where your answers can be downvoted without explanation. Of course, HP is not a question-answer forum.

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

There is absolutely value in moderation. But let me ask you a question: why do they require transparency from users (you aren’t allowed to use a fake name, for instance) but they don’t require transparency from moderators. In US courts you are allowed to face your accuser, but not on Quora, and there’s no real transparent appeal process. That’s wrong and nasty and builds distrust in the system.

http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

I am confused by the lack of transparency on that one. I was under the impression that every moderator action was transparent. It is disturbing that they aren’t.
http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

I am confused by the lack of transparency on that one. I was under the impression that every moderator action was transparent. It is disturbing that they aren’t.

Anonymous

The Scoble Hype Cycle is becoming a parody of itself.

Step 1) Find new service
Step 2) Become incredibly enthusiatic, acquire the most followers
Step 3) Declare it as the new blogging/twitter/friendfeed/foursquare/buzz/latitude/whatever else was the last victim of the Scoble Hype Cycle
Step 4) Hit some minor flaw or snag, frequently one that only affects someone using the service in an extreme way with a ridiculous number of followers
Step 5) Declare it as dead, fundamentally flawed, move on to the next lucky company

Can’t wait to see who’s next.

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

That’s a lame analysis of what I do. Really lame.

Anonymous

It was reductive and mean, yes. Sorry.

But have you ever looked back at the patterns in your coverage and use of different services and products?
I bet it’s more accurate than not.
http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

Shallow assessment but the macro trend is correct for services where you hit a wall.

What surprises me in the case of Quora is why you haven’t reposted answers to questions here on your blog, like a Q&A tab. Maybe your own mini scoble-q&a to enable folks that follow your work to ask questions and chat, promoting community. That would be an addon/service I’d enjoy as a blogger. Then these mini-communities can be woven together between blogs where a question here get’s a link to an answer on Fred Wilson’s or Dave Winer’s blog

I reposted answers that I put time into, in case they were banished to invisibility.

http://www.missi.com/ Peter Beddows

That’s a really good suggestion and I’m also wondering why this has not been happening here.

Reposting here “to enable folks that follow your work to ask questions and chat, promoting community” would seem to be a logical extension to activity commenced on Quora which is clearly not a blogging platform by any conventional definition.

On the other hand Robert, as distinct from the constrained modus operandi of Quora, your blog is in your own hands and your own control and thus a place for naturally expanding both upon the audience for your Q&A activities on Quora as well as for being open to additional contributions in answer to those questions.

http://www.missi.com/ Peter Beddows

I like Mark Essel’s observation: It seems to be a really good suggestion and I’m also wondering why this “Reposting” has not been happening here.

Reposting answers to questions here on your own blog “to enable folks that follow your work to ask questions and chat, promoting community” would seem to be a logical extension to activity commenced on Quora which is clearly not a blogging platform by any conventional definition.

On the other hand Robert, as distinct from the constrained modus operandi of Quora, your blog is in your own hands and your own control and thus a place for naturally expanding both upon the audience for your Q&A activities on Quora as well as for being open to additional contributions in answer to those questions.
http://www.techcrunch.com Michael Arrington

As far as I can tell it’s not a lame analysis, it’s accurate.

http://twitter.com/akrde akrde

Thought exactly the same after reading this blog post. Sorry Robert!

http://michaelhyatt.com Michael Hyatt

I gave up on it after two days. Too much noise. I was pummeled with questions. I’d rather host the conversation on my blog.
http://twitter.com/aswath Aswath Rao

I think Quora is much closer to Wikipedia than a blogging platform. Wikipedia has similar content management: contribution can be edited or removed with no further explanation or clarification by an editorial board. But it still has high credibility. Why Quora has not been able to replicate it?
http://maryhamilton.co.uk Mary Hamilton

Yeah, this is a big reason I’ve been sceptical about Quora. The mod process is opaque and hugely arbitrary, and as the site grows & admins have to do more work I’m not sure how they’re going to cope. I wrote a post a couple of weeks back digging into past problems with Quora’s moderation system, and came to the conclusion that as it’s currently set up it doesn’t trust its community to organise itself or to promote the best content, and that’s angered a fair few people in the past. Seems a lot like the creators are pushing the site in one direction when a lot of users want it to be something else. Dunno if it’s OK to post links here – let me know if it’d be something useful to add to the conversation.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Bob-OBrien/1573749395 Bob O’Brien

I looked for info on how Quora works behind the scenes, and how they intended to organize information (some kind of taxonomy is required) but mostly found *unanswered* questions. Without some organization to the questions, information would get wildly duplicated and become inconsistent as well. Based on the unanswered questions I saw, I completely agree that the people behind Quora are pushing toward some kind of vision for it which they don’t intend to explain, and they also don’t seem to care what their actual audience wants.

Anonymous

I cheat the system. I use quora to inspire me. That way I know what questions people want answered and then answer how I want on my blog. I also some questions there ( if I don’t feel like writing a post about it or it’s out of my normal topic of discussion). My issue with quora is I still can’t figure out what real benefit the user profile component is other than a false sense of popularity.
http://twitter.com/SailRabbits Magister

In addition to the service being derivative of at least a dozen things which preceded it, I’m also bothered by the fact that though one can view specific question via a link, you can’t surf through the site without registering for their walled garden.
http://mysearchguru.com searchguru

Robert, I never saw Quora as a “blogging platform”, but another crowdsourcing platform (like Vark.com that you turned me on to). Because I am careful which questions I answer, and who I follow, I find it works very well for technical questions I have. But, as another commentator pointed out, it is an awful like like Digg.
Anonymous

Respect Scoble, many people can learn from this, it’s ok to admit when one is wrong. We all make “mistakes” learn and move on with greater knowledge.
http://avc.com fredwilson

dismissing dave winer’s opinions is never a good idea. he has strong views and can be prickly at times, but his instincts are as good as anyone i know.

i’ve resisted engaging in quora because we have this community called AVC which is a pretty damn good community on its own right and we have interesting discussions there all the time and i get to control it a bit more than some other place on the web.

http://scobleizer.com Scobleizer

Yup. I have to learn this lesson every year or so. Sorry Dave!

Chris

I think Fred gets right to the heart of why I never saw Quora as a blogging platform: you’re not in control, someone else is.
http://www.techcrunch.com Michael Arrington

The problem with Winer isn’t that he’s right or wrong. He’s often very right. But when you disagree with him he declares you evil and then proceeds to trash you. Not worth the effort to cycle with his manic depressive episodes.

Anonymous

This is a common trait of people who are often very right.
http://technbiz.blogspot.com paramendra

Entertaining comment.
http://avc.com fredwilson

i disagree Mike. i’ve gotten the declaration of evil treatment as well. if you take it as dave being dave, then you just let it roll off your shoulders.

i need all the insight i can get and dave provides a ton of it

http://www.techcrunch.com Michael Arrington

You are clearly the better man.
http://avc.com fredwilson

not better, just different

http://www.missi.com/ Peter Beddows

Fred’s blog is an excellent example of presenting information often in an implied if not explicit Q&A fashion in a constructive, informative mode where an avidly involved community has been established and the communities’ own response to those blog items turn into very productive discussions.

In my opinion, it would take away from, rather than add to, the great value that Fred has created, and contributes, in establishing the A VC Community if he were to become distracted/diluted by having to also manage a Quora quotient in addition to all of the other things in his schedule.
http://technbiz.blogspot.com paramendra

As For Quora: Blogging Still Rules http://goo.gl/fb/IFHVt

http://techdrawl.com celiadyer

Robert, my experience with Quora has led me conclude it is often a bully site. In my experience, esoteric questions receive no or few answers anyway. On the other hand, trending questions attract droves of self-proclaimed experts who use Quora as their blogging platform. I once answered a question on whom to follow on Twitter with an honest opinion addressing that single question. Others followed with lengthy, bulleted discussions of how dumb my reply was, addressing instead the importance of engagement (duh!) leaving me with the choice of either defending my comment (the first reply to the question) or deleting it. I chose the latter. I don’t care to carve out time to argue with Quora bloggers.

http://pithagora.com fjpoblam

Right: two thirds of the posts are answers or comments; one third seem to be comments on whether the answers or comments should be answers instead of comments, or comments instead of answers, or inappropriate, period. Bullying, as you said.

http://techdrawl.com celiadyer

Well said!

http://Twitter.com/Ed Ed

I warned of these concerns a month and two ago, when:
-The very design and function flow, doomed it.
-The founder and design team ignored concerns and silently edited them from existence,
were rude, and then repeated that sequence again,
even as the crowd began to echo my concerns months later.
http://www.adrianscott.org/ Adrian Scott

I think there’s no coincidence that Quora came out of former FB-ers. When I heard the founder speak at y comb startup school, I understood why quora feels like french toast that tastes like cardboard.
WinWonder

Wow,you finally figured out all the stuff we’ve been pointing out all along. Great job Scobes!
Ali Shaheen

I think as a Q&A service LinkedIn Q&A is much much better – you don’t have anonymous answers there, and you know the personal credentials of the user answering your question AND there is no silly thumbs down or up etc.

Quora is redundant.
http://blog.calbucci.com/ Marcelo Calbucci

What impresses me the most about you is transparency. The typical A-blogger would fight tooth and nail to prove that has wrong views of a month ago are not wrong.

BTW, I think I’m at the same cycle you are with Quora. I don’t know if the service will succeed or what it needs to do to improve, but I lost interest. I was finding good stuff multiple times a day, now it takes too much energy and time.
http://twitter.com/davidhaigh David Haigh

Its not so much the collapsing that bothers me, its the “merging” of questions (with several answers) with unrelated ones for political/business reasons. For example, I contributed to “Is Google search result quality going up or down?” as did several others but then this was last week incorporated into “What nonconfidential evidence can be presented to prove that Google search quality is going up?” by a “former member of Google’s search quality team”. Its a completely different (and leading) question. Everyone that answered the original question has lost their input. This isn’t a substitute for the persistent, unilateral opinion and discussion that is blogging.

Anyway, honest post as always. Hope Dave starts to follow you again!
Tim

opaque moderation- like Apple’s App store, the only way to get apps into an unjailbroken iPhone
Vaartha

I don’t understand what openweb got to do with quora’s ‘failings’? How would the moderation problem go away?
http://bitshare.tumblr.com BitShare

I was going to write a small blog on Quora but didnt get around to it. It was going to be about how much Quora makes me think about Wiki Answers which was a mix of Y! Answers and Wikipedia. I tried it but ended up hating it because other users could edit my questions and/or answers. Something I despised and created an ideal environment for spammers and trolls.

Quora is still new so things can be fixed and changed. But right now it gives me that Wiki Answers feeling so I shy away from it.

The best part so far is seeing big tech people, founders, etc post their insight where it’s something we the public rarely get to see.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=422553 Anonymous

Kudos for admitting you’ve changed your mind. And on the subject of moderation: humorless, over-zealous moderation killed one of my favorite communities, Chowhound. Good execution on moderation is more art than science, and harder to manage than it looks.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=422553 Anonymous

Funny bug, it doesn’t list my real name or even my very cool Facebook user id (robinw).

Robin Wolaner

http://www.boutotcom.com/ bruno boutot

The fundamental flaw in Quora is that it doesn’t get what a “community” is: Communities are built around people, not around questions.

Quora has chosen to be built around questions so, in a way, it’s in the same territory as content farms like Demand Media: its business model is ultimately to have its questions rise in search engines and to cash in the ensuing advertising.

It’s a legitimate business model, but it doesn’t make a community. In a community built around people (like MetaFilter), people ask questions and their questions are not edited by other members; moderators are real people and are members of the community who you can talk to and who are available to explain openly their moderation.

The funniest part is that MetaFilter makes most of its money from advertising to people brought to the site by search engines. So the business model may be the same as Quora, but the social model is built around people.

The verdict seems to be: as soon as people begin to realize that the “community” part of Quora is an illusion (or is defective) they hate it. You can’t build a social model around questions, only around people.

http://www.powershiftermedia.com/blog jaypiddy

They alienate their users period.
http://vkelman-blog.blogspot.com/ vkelman

Wikipedia is built around topics, not people, but it still excells and is among few most valuable services on Internet. Not everything on the net is social, and not everything should be built around people.

http://www.boutotcom.com/ bruno boutot

Good point, vkelman.
But Wikipedia is not built around the identity of people who respond either. My feeling is that Quora is trying to have it both ways: playing up the people who participate to create an attractive social environment and playing down the human part in questions and answers.
I agree that not everyhting needs to be social, but I doubt it is possible to be half social.

http://www.micropersuasion.com Steve Rubel

I could never get into it, although I did see the value. The UI needs a lot of clean up. It’s thoroughly confusing, rules aside. And, as you say, it’s already in a crowded space – LInkedIn Answers, Yahoo Answers, etc. formspring even has 5x the traffic. So, they’re all important to watch but let’s see what emerges as the next big thing.

http://www.facebook.com/orliyakuel Orli Yakuel

Everything that Steve said and more: I can’t even see any of your existed topics Scoble since I always get an error message http://www.flickr.com/photos/orliy1/5401758882/ – Shame.
http://www.powershiftermedia.com/blog jaypiddy

The UI needs more than a clean up if you ask me. I am glad that industry professionals like your self feel the same as I do on Quora. I was beginning to think I was alone in my dislike with the site a few weeks ago with all the positive hype the site was receiving.

http://webtechnologist.com Web Technologist

I am sick of other people editing my thoughts or questions. Quora is a closed system for admin elites looking for a power trip. I logged in this morning and had the following message waiting for me.

My New Notification

A Quora admin blocked you from editing on Quora.

Comment: Multiple collapsed answers.

The collapsed answer was a picture of a dog? WTF I was not allowed to post on my profile page. I deactivated my account. I’m done with Quora.

http://techdrawl.com celiadyer

Classic. Exactly.

LJL

All it took was to see how involved Steve Case was. Glad you admit your mistakes.
http://blog.suretomeet.com CliffAllen

Since Quora edits (or authorizes edits) to what people write, doesn’t that change them into the legal definition of “publisher” who is responsible for all content they publish? I’ve forgotten the legal outcome of the Prodigy situation about editing content, so I’m hazy on all this.
http://jasonkeath.com jakrose

I could care less if Quora goes mainstream, I just want it as a site embeddable tool. I think they have a great product for large blog and website communities that want to crowd-source FAQ’s or knowledge bases. Even if Quora marketed the software as an Enterprise internal training resource product, I think they would reach their investment goals. Most of the upside I see for the future of Quora is use of their product outside of Quora.com. Hoping for a mainstream audience and running ads to them or selling the data will not work.

http://thesocialjoint.com/ Lucretia M Pruitt

Disagree about the data Jason – but let’s talk about it some time, I feel like I’m commenting too much on Robert’s comment thread :

http://jasonkeath.com jakrose

I could care less if Quora goes mainstream, I just want it as a site embeddable tool. I think they have a great product for large blog and website communities that want to crowd-source FAQ’s or knowledge bases. Even if Quora marketed the software as an Enterprise internal training resource product, I think they would reach their investment goals. Most of the upside I see for the future of Quora is use of their product outside of Quora.com. Hoping for a mainstream audience and running ads to them or selling the data will not work.
http://jasonkeath.com jakrose

I could care less if Quora goes mainstream, I just want it as a site embeddable tool. I think they have a great product for large blog and website communities that want to crowd-source FAQ’s or knowledge bases. Even if Quora marketed the software as an Enterprise internal training resource product, I think they would reach their investment goals. Most of the upside I see for the future of Quora is use of their product outside of Quora.com. Hoping for a mainstream audience and running ads to them or selling the data will not work.
http://twitter.com/virtualewit Pauline Randall

I’ve pretty much given up on Quora. I’ve found it too noisy, too much opinion and difficult to find the facts, interface is horrid – I could go on. However the thing that really finished me off was someone editing one of my questions. They may have preferred their version but it wasn’t what I asked!

I’ll no doubt drop in from time to time and see what develops but it certainly isn’t high up my priority list at the moment.
http://www.binpress.com Eran Galperin

The reasons you mentioned is why I like the stack exchange sites so much – their moderation system has evolved through user feedback and deep introspection, leading to highly refined system that keeps the quality high and (most of) the users pleased.

Quara has a bad interface (usability wise, not design) and lower quality of questions / answers compared to the stack exchange sites, due to the moderation problems and lack of domain focus. I never understood how it got it’s initial traction and gathered all those authority figures, but I guess after the initial glow its problems are becoming apparent.
Anonymous

Robert, I don’t know that you were right or wrong so much as it is that you are now seeing the downside to a very specifically designed community knowledge system after gaining insights from experience. Every design decision has its trade offs, and many of the things you now cite as bad and preventing its future growth, are in fact things that will make it more interesting to others and attract them if given the chance.

Personally, I don’t participate there very much, but I have been thinking about doing so. The system (or network) is only as valuable as the perceived value of those who participate within it, which is why having Steve Case in there is an oft cited element of what makes it interesting to many.

No, its not a blogging service, nor is Twitter a microblogging service (still cant get at some of my original tweets which I thought I was PUBLISHING via Twitter), it’s its own thing. Ultimately people will use the things that most appeal to their needs based on prior experiences. ie, if you asked a question poorly and someone edited it to make it better, you may like that feature, but if someone destroyed your intentions, you will tend to dislike it.

I guess I am just saying that once again, its relative, which is why I am now staying away from the shiny objects and letting more people play with emerging technology for a while before jumping in with two feet. I have made too many investments with my time and knowledge over the years that have been destroyed by the system’s developers to get excited at every next great thing (though I still register and save my username for later
http://www.facebook.com/shelley.champine Shelley Champine

Thank you for being forthcoming about your change of opinion Robert. I had become seriously creeped out by the Quora moderators editing both my questions and answers and hadn’t been back on in over a week. (Anything that I had posted with even an iota of “personality” was suddenly being scrubbed clean and sanitized for the masses.) I’ll probably go back from time to time check for answers to generic questions but the novelty and idea that this is something revolutionary has worn off.

Why I was wrong about Quora as a blogging service …

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