What does ‘withholding answers’ mean on Quora?

To those confused: yes, it’s my coinage over at the Necrologue, and Heather Jedrus’ answer nails it. Sorry about the confusion: as comments at Heather’s answer have ably dissected it, the blog reports not only punishments, but also reasons for users voluntarily reducing or ceasing activity on Quora, that have to do with reactions to Quora as opposed to Real Life.

Category definitions by Nick Nicholas on Necrologue

  • User-triggered
    • […]
    • Quit: The user has made an explicit statement that they will no longer participate in Quora. Where publicly available, such statements will henceforth be linked to from the post itself. Bear in mind that users have various reasons for declining to participate in Quora.
    • Reducing Participation: The user has made an explicit statement that they are reducing the level of their engagement on Quora. Where publicly available, such statements will henceforth be linked to from the post itself.
    • Withholding Answers: The user has made an explicit statement that they will no longer answer questions on Quora. They will still do other actions on Quora, such as comment or message. Where publicly available, such statements will henceforth be linked to from the post itself.

The canonical instance of Withholding Answers is Matthew Sutton, who has participated on Quora only through comments for the past two years:

I’ve returned to Quora after a 3 mo. edit block (10/2014–1/2015) for answers apparently considered not-helpful by moderators. I’ve decided to keep my account open before being banned from the site permanently; consequently contributions will be kept to a minimum going forward. As a passive user of the site I won’t be accepting A2As and upvoted content may be deleted at any time.

This question has been asked because I’ve used the term to describe Michael Masiello’s “hiatus that may turn into a quietus”. I picked a description that came short of being “quit”, and Michael was clear that he would still be checking messages here (and had still been writing comments).

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