Ambivalence

• Hegemon
• New birth of freedom
• Individualism gone berserk
• Lofty ideals
• Opportunity
• Smugness
• Some of my best friends are American 🙂
• With reference to Rita Jóñer’s answer to What do you think when you hear the words, “United States”? I get stumped by the US states too. In fact, here’s my excuse to expose myself to ridicule:

(And I’m doing a lot better than the average Australian.)

So, who do I got to apologise to?

(Looks it up.)

States I forgot:

• Missouri
• Utah (WOW)
• Kentucky
• Arkansas
• New Hampshire (WOW)

States I misplaced:

• CO
• IO
• NE
• KS (not KA)
• TN
• MN
• VE

Honestly? Better than I expected.

I connect with Quora at the café on the way to work: The Ambrosiary

I connect with Quora on train to (and from) work:

And I connect with Quora at the café at work: Mughouse | Facebook

… when I’m not dad-dancing to the tracks playing as I walk in, or doing stupid banter about today’s blackboard message with the staff. (Today: “Coffee helps me maintain my ‘Never Killed Anyone’ streak.”)

Originally Answered:

Is Quora becoming a social networking site?

Becoming?

There is ongoing debate as to whether Quora is a social networking site or not:

• How is Quora different from other social networks?
• Can Quora be called a social networking site?
• How is Quora different from other social networks?
• What is basically Quora? Is this a social networking site?

The debate is getting confused as to whether it has the tone of popular social networking sites or not. Because obviously (to me), a site where you have followers and comments and can interact with people with whom you have common interests is a social networking site. And Quora has had that functionality from the very beginning—though it tried to conceal it under the weird Credits (discontinued Quora feature) economy, and Adam D’Angelo is rumoured to have wanted to do away with comments.

The real question implicit there is whether Quora is being less than it should be, because of the increased emphasis by users on using Quora socially.

• Well, if you ask me, the putative mission of Quora to share and grow the world’s knowledge is as vague as a mission statement should be, and certainly doesn’t preclude it being a social networking salon.
• The thinking of D’Angelo & Cheever from 2010 that it should somehow displace Wikipedia and Google, as the go-to place for everyone on the interwebs to get information, was always laughable, and has been mercifully forgotten. That’s not the kind of focus that Quora should have had to begin with.
• Quora has a good niche as an intellectual(ish), polite salon for discussion. That does not preclude pure knowledge seeking and factual succinct answers, but that’s not the Quora I’m primarily experiencing or enjoying. And as Yishan Wong once wisely said: Quora is a great place to answer questions, but not a great place to get your own question answered.
• As Laura Hale has abundantly documented, the way Quora is used in India is much closer to conventional social networking, and this has led to any number of clashes between Indian users and non-Indian users.
• There’s a lot more users, and a lot more banter, and a lot more selfies on Quora than there were in 2010. So there’s more frivolity.
• Then again, Quora in 2010 was a bunch of geeks talking about startups. Yawn. I seek intellectual exchange in the humanities on Quora (as well as banter); I’m far likelier to get it now than back then.

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.

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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.

You know, I had a long post on this issue written at my The Insurgency blog. The draft got deleted by the ever-malfeatured Quora UI, because I was under a too-frequent blog post block. (Who knew? Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is the rate limit when you get this message on Quora?)

So I’ll try to recreate that post here, as a meditation on a Shermanesque statement about TW. As in:

If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.

Some might think this a flounce. To them, I say: Flounce off. These are my misgivings about accepting TW, should I be offered it, and they are pertinent to what the question is asking.

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Those that know me on Quora know that I am a Welchite about Quora: that I am disgruntled with a lot about how Quora is run, both day-to-day and underlyingly. I have just created a whole blog about my gripes: The Insurgency.

Those that know me also know that I have become a moderately popular writer on Quora (800k views, 800 followers). Laura Hale has run the numbers (Laura Hale’s answer to How can I become a Top Writer on Quora?), and that level of popularity likely makes me eligible for Top Writer next year.

(Some might think that is awfully presumptuous of me, for there are no doubt worthier recipients. I’m sure there are. But I am eligible, so again: Flounce off.)

This raises a conundrum, that my astute friend Clarissa Lohr has remarked on, and that in fact I have been pondering for a few months. If I dislike Quora Inc. and their lack of transparency so intensely—including in how they award TWs—then would I welcome formal recognition by them?

These are my pros and cons:

• I have invested much time and effort, much intellect and emotion, in my content here, and in curating the community here. It would be nice to see my efforts acknowledged. PRO.
• I don’t go looking for the quill when I pick who to follow. It certainly doesn’t count as a guarantee of quality to me. In fact, I find myself following people despite the quill rather than because of it, when they have it. MILD CON.
• As with so much else in Quora Inc., there is no transparency in how it is awarded, and there is suspicion about whether it is withheld from people out of favour with Quora Inc. (I don’t care if it’s true or not; this is about perception, and the lack of transparency guarantees the perception.) CON.
• There are many things I dislike about people who are TWs; I’ve listed a few at What are some aspects of famous Quorans that you dislike? (DELETED QUESTION). They include cliquishness, upvotes independent of quality, hectoring, and lack of two-way engagement.
  The thing is, though, they’re not really the result of the quill: they’re just correlated with the quill. They’re the result of being an extremely popular (and thus overstretched) writer, or of being the kind of writer who lots of people will follow (and thus make popular). I’ve caught myself starting to succumb to unmerited upvotes, for example, because I have a cadre of mutual upvoters (though at least I keep saying “Vote #1 Person Who Had A Better Answer”).
  The dislikables would apply regardless of whether Ms MegaSuperstar Quoran, with 50k followers, 300 notifications a day, and 70 simultaneous arguments in comments, had a quill or not. I would still need to work against them and not be an asshole on here, whether I got the quill or not. NEITHER.
• The existence of the quill cultivates an atmosphere of Us vs Them, of plebs vs patricians; this was an early criticism of the scheme, and it persists. The more one ascends the rungs of popularity, the less pressing that concern seems. But then again, Hristo Smirnenski has an ever-timely slap in the face for those who do: The Tale Of The Stairs. I’m not Above the users with 5 followers and 2 posts a week; and I don’t come here to feel Above them. MILD CON.
• The TWs are cultivated by Quora Inc as favoured users, with their own Facebook lounges, rumoured early access to new releases (though apparently that has actually happened only once), better access to Quora staff, and more of a say in the development of the product. Power users are good people to use as a testbed and a sounding board, that is true. But given how little us plebs hear from Quora Inc at all, this has thrown me into apoplexy.
  I have been reassured by those on the inner side that the rumours are exaggerated, and that the TWs don’t seem to have much more influence on the Quora UI roulette than anyone else. I guess. But the existence of the Facebook lounges still offends me to the core—especially if it’s used to strategise behind closed walls; and if I do accept TW, I will have nothing to do with it. CON.
• Don’t need the swag, although my wife would happily take the New York Times subscription. I would read it, except I spend too much time on Quora to read anything else. NEITHER.
• Some of my friends are tickled at the prospect of a Quora critic making TW. OK, one friend, Zeibura S. Kathau; hey Z-Kat, we can throw spitballs together! It would certainly help mitigate any perception that TWs are corporate lackeys. I don’t know if there is any such perception; then again, I’m wearing Smirnenski lenses. It won’t be unprecedented: Scott Welch, after all, made TW in 2015. … Though not 2016. Hm. MILD PRO.
• It’s way too much work to reject the blasted quill, and so few have done so (Nick Nicholas’ answer to Are there any writers who have rejected awards on Quora?), that it’s going to be taken as a flounce, and be pilloried and misconstrued. Just shut up and take the award already. PRO.

OK. Those are my thoughts. What do others think?