January 9, 2024
"Quora once encapsulated a central premise of the internet, that connecting people with questions and people with answers across the globe would create..."
"... an exchange of information unlike anything before it; that rather than seeking answers from a friend or in a library, you could put your query to … everyone. Today, the website spams my inbox with questions such as 'Has your husband ever shared you with another woman?' Fourteen years into its run, Quora now provides an answer to one fundamental question: How has the internet evolved? From idealism to opportunism, from knowledge-seeking to attention-grabbing, from asking questions to shouting answers."Writes Jacob Stern, in "If There Are No Stupid Questions, Then How Do You Explain Quora? The tragedy of Q&A sites is the story of the internet" (The Atlantic).
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20 comments:
"If There Are No Stupid Questions, Then How Do You Explain Quora?"
Single women with cats!
I guess I have a selected feed, based on internet surveillance discovering my interests (which do not include sordid sex). My Quora feed is generally very interesting, mostly somewhat imponderable military/historical questions.
How is babby formed?
How do save babby?
Quora?! Is that still a thing?
Yahoo Answers was the same way. Sheer garbage.
Quora makes it even worse by jamming the screen full of supposed answers to other questions too.
The pre-AOL Internet was limited to academic, corporate or military users. Everybody who signed on had to have an institutional email address. So if you were a jerk, somebody could complain to the institution and you could actually have consequences for bad behavior.
Stupidity permanently arrived when AOL users arrived.
"My Quora feed is generally very interesting, mostly somewhat imponderable military/historical questions."
Try asking here. There are a lot of experts here besides me.
Is he kidding?
The questions you get from Quora are based on data mining. If he’s getting questions about sharing his wife then his internet activity is prompting that question.
Keep your Internet activity to the Godfather and Beatles and those are the questions Quora sends
I like quora, and spend more time reading it than I should. There are plenty of BS answers, especially to questions with a political angle. For example, "Why are Republicans racist scum?", so it is depressing at times. But overall it is fun if you stick to people who provide decent answers.
@mccullogh: Maybe his wife was planning a surprise party for him.
My Quora emails are nothing like this author's. Browsing history might explain. Heh.
Another story of the Internet that way fewer than half of you will be able to appreciate is that almost all young women now know how to give competent blowjobs.
"Stupidity permanently arrived when AOL users arrived."
Was just thinking the other day about how in the 90s forums would be inundated with new people after Christmas, because families would get their first home computers then.
My Quora emails are nothing like this author's. Browsing history might explain. Heh.
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he cam ask Quora : "what is browsing incognito?"
Quora? That's a blast from the past. They've been a niche inside a niche for a long time.
Anyone want to talk about the hot search engine of 1995: Altavista? It had a stunning 500GB hard disk by 1998...you could put all the world's knowledge on that. But, it couldn't hold a single DVD's content...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista
The iPhone is what really brought the unwashed masses to the Internet. Pre-iPhone Internet required an actual computer and that was a small filter for the morons.
I went to Quora a few times but wasn't overly impressed with the answers, which were much like standing around a cocktail party with everybody giving their opinions, many of which can sound authoritative but be completely wrong.
There is no such thing as a stupid question.
But there are plenty of inquisitive idiots.
Quora? I Ask Jeeves. Or now, just Ask.
Hey! I have an AOL account, and have had for decades. It was useful back when Internet connections were still dialup, and now, of course, it's free, so I've never bothered getting rid of it for something less declasse.
As for Quora, I haven't even looked at it. But if it taps into your past browsing history, no great surprise that the queries it feeds you are, shall we say, slanted. My own preference -- which is replicated all over the WebTubes even now -- is for small, dedicated groups devoted to particular fields of knowledge. Like, say, EARLYM-L (early music, classical) back in LISTSERV days. Everyone there knew what everyone else was talking about.
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