Day: December 14, 2016

REVISED ANSWER:

In light of Scott Welch’s answer to When do you think Quora is going to end?

If they’re serious about their monetisation through ads (which they are, and the venture capital funders agree that they are), not for another twenty years at least.

My original answer said “Unless there’s a lot more monetisation going on than we can see”. Well, there was.

ORIGINAL ANSWER:

When they burn through all their venture capital. Unless there’s a lot more monetisation going on than we can see. Or Jimbo Wales somehow assimilates it into Wikimedia, but I don’t see how that’s gonna happen.

I give it five years.

I’ve only been to Istanbul.

What surprised me most was how much like Athens it felt. Especially Kadıköy. The same rickety elevators in apartment buildings, the same scenes of young people hanging out in outdoor cafés, the same traffic chaos. Even the same layouts and typographic excesses in newspapers.

Also:

• How exceptional the food was. As I took to saying: Turkish food is just like Greek food, only good.
• How well Turkey was doing economically. A country that does major infrastructure works like the Marmaray has a lot to be proud of—even if it was branded as being to the Greater Glory of Erdoğan.
• How Turkish tea really was everywhere, and Turkish coffee was invisible. My wife, who spent time as a child in Istanbul, immediately started drinking 10 cups a day of bardaklı çay (as I took to calling it, much to the waiters’ amusement).

Fractus sum: solus qui me fregit me reparabit.

(or, less elegantly: me reparare potest: “can fix me”, as opposed to “will fix me”.)

I’ll start by posting Gigi J Wolf’s limitations, and how I’ve broken them:

The Lupine Commandments by Nick Nicholas on Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile

For my own part:

• If my answer is supplemental or complementary to a good answer, I will signpost that good answer with “Vote #1 [User Who Posted A Better Answer]
• If you are nasty to me in comments, I *usually* won’t take the bait, I’ll just ignore you. Usually.
• 15 months in, no BNBR warnings. Hope to keep it that way.
• If I choose to answer in an adult topic, I’ll at least consider doing so anonymously, out of concern about giving unnecessary offence to my followers. Otherwise, God no. I am who I am, and if you don’t like me as a package, don’t follow me.
• I will swear in posts as rhetorically appropriate. I do not consider that a BNBR violation.
• I may write longwinded, ranty, stream-of-consciousness humorous answers from time to time. But I still strive to put an underlying serious argument in there, that addresses the question. Even if it’s a survey question.
• I’m OK with putting up comments in languages other than English, but only as banter with someone I know.
• If I like you enough, I will make up a nickname for you. My Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile blog lists them periodically.
• I still view reporting with distaste, because of my annoyances with Quora Moderation; but I no longer refuse to report. I used to: (I will not hit your Report button by Nick Nicholas on The Insurgency)
• I use the downvote sparingly. The contribution has to be blatantly stupid and/or irrelevant, and I penalise irrelevant much more than stupid.

I would say that, whatever the rights and/or wrongs of the particular instance, don’t bother. Quora Inc won’t be moved, and in fact will likely dig their heels in to prove the point that their decision is final.

If there is a glimmer of hope of anyone being restored, it’s through their own appeal to the mods that this is some kind of error. And they’d need reasonable evidence.

You can’t reason with Moderation on their behalf. Especially if (perish the thought!) Moderation happen to be right.

Really does depend on the church, and on your predilections. You have had some great suggestions here, including: Pay attention (so you actually know what you’re rejecting—and I’ll add, so you can still get a valuable cultural grounding); meditate; read stuff.

I’m grateful I was forced to go, but I got bored a lot too. And this was a Greek Orthodox service, where there’s nothing to read (for free; you can buy a missal, and few do), where the service was in Ancient Greek (I was grateful for it; most aren’t), and where audience participation is rare.

If you won’t get anything out of the service, and you can’t get a reasonably covered up distraction, think about stuff. You’re offline in a place without distractions: that is a valuable thing, don’t waste it.

Plan your next Quora answer or three, for example.