Month: December 2016

OP is Albanian, and I’m not surprised he got attitude from Greek-Americans.

Dimitris Almyrantis is a Greece Greek, and I’ll presume he hasn’t spent time in Australia or America.

That is not intended as a veiled attack on Dimitris, whom I esteem even when I disagree with him. (Especially when I disagree with him!) But I think he’s doing presentism. Any attacks I make on Dimitris are overt, after all; and he usually ends up convincing me I’m wrong. 🙂

Nationalism inside Greece has quietened down significantly in the last two decades, and is now a minority rather than a majority thing. (Still a sizeable minority thing, I dare say.) But I was in Salonica in 1995, when Turkey and Greece were last genuinely about to go to war over Imia/Kardak. And it truly felt like I was in a country gone insane (even my beloved Μαλβίνα Κάραλη), with no respite to be had for me but Beavis and Butthead. And the flagwaving was nothing if not nationalist. It involved militaries and flags, after all.

I was in Melbourne in the early 90s, when Macedonians and Greeks were blowing up each others’ community halls. That was the Balkan hostilities playing out in Australia, which Greece Greeks had the luxury of assuming were long settled in situ. If that’s not nationalism to Dimitris… well, I can see how diaspora Greeks would assume it is. Their codeword for these kinds of disputes, after all, has remained εθνικά ζητήματα, “issues of national interest”.

(Why yes, Greek uses the word ethnic to mean national. And yes, of course that’s part of the problem.)

These issues play out in the diaspora more readily than in the homeland; see for example Nick Nicholas’ answer to Has Melbourne been the financial center of activities for advocates of annexing Greek Macedonia to FYROM? In OP’s case, there’s likely a whole lot of people for whom the ethnic conflicts in Çamëria and/or Labëria are not ancient history, and are not hushed up by their national government.

The diaspora believes they are safeguarding the interests of the homeland. The diaspora was intellectually formed in a Greece where petty ethnic rivalries were regarded as integral to nationalism. So the diaspora does tub-thumping, in a way that is no longer mainstream in the homeland. And Dimitris can thank his lucky deracinated stars that this is not the Greece he was formed in.

(I’m grateful for it too. A Greek teenager with such a keen interest in the Ottoman Empire was simply inconceivable a generation ago. I’m being serious: I was there.)

What people created the notion of Europe? Ancient Greeks.

Where did the Ancient Greeks live? On the border between Asia and Europe.

The Ancient Greeks had not circumnavigated the Arctic (and they didn’t believe a word Pytheas said). The Ancient Greeks did not know anything about the Urals. The Ancient Greeks did not even know what a continent was.

All they knew was, there was stuff to the East of them, stuff to the South of them, and stuff to the Northwest of them. They called each a different name. And to them, the Aegean Sea (and I guess the Black Sea) were as big a divider of landmass as the Mediterranean is. Remember: they did not know about the Urals. And they wouldn’t really have cared.

So the notion of Europe and Asia predates modern notions of continents, and made sense to a people living where they did. The notion was perpetuated, because European culture was defined by what the Greeks thought.

The one true anthem of apathy is, of course, I’m interested in Apathy, by TISM.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ubgRsYJxHQk

This is a much-beloved topic of mine.

There are a suite of ad hoc romanisations of non-Roman alphabets, devised for the ASCII-based internet (and phones). Greeklish is the Greek one. And Greeklish varies widely from practitioner to practitioner, mainly as to whether it’s a transcription (capturing the sounds of letters in Roman characters), or a transliteration (so that the Roman letters can be a bit more remote what an English-speaker would expect).

So a xi would be <ks> in the former, and any of <j, $, 3, c> in the latter—mostly to look like ξ, or in the case of <c> because it’s a leftover character in keyboard mappings.

Πώς θα χρησιμοποιούσες διαφορετική αλφάβητο να γράψεις την πρώτη σου γλώσσα (“How would you use a different alphabet to write your native language”) would end up as:

• Phonetic: Pos tha xrisimopoiouses diaforetiki alfavito na grapsis tin proti sou glossa
• Transliteration: Pws qa xrhsimopoiouses diaforetikh alfabhto na grayeis thn prwth sou glwssa.

Of course, Greeks also do the reverse: write English in phonetic Greek. For example, How would you use a different alphabet to write your native language:

• Χάου γουντ γιου γιουζ ε ντίφερεντ άλφαμπετ του ράιτ γιορ νέιτιβ λάγκουιτζ.

The real fun and games was during the hey-day of Greeklish, when Greeks would write English in phonetic Greek—in Greeklish. So:

• Xaou gount giou giouz e ntiferent alfampet tou rai”t gior nei”tib lagkouitz.

Remember: these are of course Modern Greek pronunciations of the Greek alphabet.

It’s almost a word when we were kids.

It is a word from when you were kids. It originated as a “nursery word”, as the OED puts it (i.e. baby talk), meaning both “good bye” and “walk”:

1823 S. Hutchinson Let. Sept.–Oct. (1954) 261 Baby I believe has not learnt any new words since Mrs M. wrote last, but she has the old ones very perfect—‘Gone’—‘Ta ta’—‘By bye’.

1886 J. Sully Teacher’s Handbk. Psychol. A child of eighteen months will mentally rehearse a series of experiences, as those of a walk: ‘Go tata, see geegee.’

In fact, it was used to name a theory of the origin of language as iconic gesture (which is presumably a baby-talk kind of thing):

ta-ta theory adj. Philology the theory that language originated in an attempt to imitate the body’s gestures with the vocal organs.

What would it sound like if someone were to pronounce every word and letter in the English language exactly as it is supposed to sound?

My profile says:

I love Quorans.

I loathe Quora Inc.

Baseb S. Bas has asked me why. I have no doubt that several other Quorans new to me have asked why too. Just not to me.

I say Quorans new to me, because if you’ve been reading me for a while, I’d think you’d have worked it out. Especially if you’ve stumbled on the content of this blog (which until now was posted on Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile). But this gives me the opportunity to lay my thoughts about Quora Inc. out a little more systematically. And I trust judiciously.

I do not loathe Quora Inc., btw, because my One True Quora Master Scott Welch brainwashed me to. In fact, it was only after months of me hating on Quora that I reached out to Scott, and found to my surprise that I had day job business in common with him. Scott has certainly helped me crystallise my thoughts though.

I loathe Quora Inc. because I love Quorans. Whatever nebulous and hubristic notion D’Angelo and Cheever had in mind back in 2010, Quorans have not realised it. They’ve realised something better. They’ve realised a place where good writers, good scholars and experts, and good people can exchange thoughts and insights—and do so in more than a paragraph. They’ve realised a reincarnation of the best of the venerable Usenet. It’s an asset and a balm.

Quora Inc. kinda brought this into being, though it wasn’t their primary intent. The anecdote goes that if it was up to D’Angelo, there’d be no comments. Quora Inc. kinda sustains it, through the existence of BNBR—whatever I might think of its execution. But Quora Inc. is heading towards bringing it right back out of being.

There are two families of reasons why I loathe Quora Inc. Reasons at the surface of what Quora does, and reasons underlying what Quora does. They’re related: the lacks at the core drive the fumbles on the surface.

At the surface

Moderation

Oh, Moderation. I have never gotten over the shock of the banning of Jimmy Liu: On strike in support of Jay Liu by Nick Nicholas on Opɯdʒɯlɯklɑr In Exile. That set me digging into the archives of the underbelly of Quora. And I’ve been implacable about it since.

There’s the superficial reaction of how someone you enjoy reading or interacting with is suddenly carted off by the Black Maria in the middle of the night, with you none the wiser. That’s why I’ve decided to set up Necrologue: so people are at least informed about moderator sanctions.

But sanction needs to be available to moderators, in order to put teeth behind their rules of conduct. It’s not that, so much, which I resent. It’s the lack of transparency, and it’s the lack of accountability. In fact, until reasonably recently, there was no explanation or justification given to sanctions at all. That lack of transparency leads to resentment and suspicion. That’s a grave Quora Inc. has dug for itself.

Quora, as Chrys Jordan has quite insightfully put it, is a Cryptocracy: Chrys Jordan’s answer to What if Quora were a country? If you don’t realise you’re in a cryptocracy, all is well, and the trains are running on time. Once you realise you’re in a cryptocracy, everything looks suspect to you.

UI

Oh, the stupid, it hurts. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way to put it. UI changing capriciously from month to month. Heralded improvements to the user experience, that infuriate just about everyone, and get quietly rescinded a few months later. (The number of actual improvements in my user experience over the past 15 months is far less than 5.) Longstanding bugs with internet connectivity or navigation that are ignored for years. Notifications disappearing without a trace.

And don’t even get me started on Search.

The UI churn points to an underlying issue, of course. Feifei Wang has the most plausible account I’ve seen: Feifei Wang’s answer to What is your review of the new Quora Product Update which enables a focused reading page from your feed? (17.6.2016)

Customer Relations

We have a blog dedicated to user feedback: Rage against Quora

We have a blog dedicated to ontology feedback: Topic Gnomery

We have any number of questions dedicated to soliciting user feedback on what Quora does.

We have lots and lots of improvised guides on onboarding new users.

We have crickets from Quora employees. With the exception of Tatiana Estévez, there’s rarely any response, and Tatiana herself responds only in extreme circumstances. We have no sense (and certainly no proof) that our feedback is valued, or even received.

There is a Facebook group for Top Writers, and a Facebook group for Top Writer User Feedback. Quora employees apparently say a bit more there. The existence of these invitation-only groups has thrown me into incandescent rage; but I have been assured by several people that no, nothing said on those groups gets taken on board either.

We are reminded that Quora is a business, not a cooperative and not an Athenian agora, and it will choose how to communicate. Well, sure. Except people now expect a Web 2.0 experience of their Web—including their sites. When Charlie Cheever was ousted from Quora, Quorans asked why, on Quora: What is Charlie Cheever’s status at Quora as of September 11th, 2012? When D’Angelo answered why, people weren’t happy with the corporate obfuscation, and Jon Mixon commented:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-Ch…

Does this really answer the question?

It does…if the question was “How does the press release for Charlie Cheever leaving Quora, read?”

Of course there are sound business reasons why you don’t air your dirty laundry in public. But people expect more now.

Interlude

Commodification

Michaelis Maus, resident nihilist gadfly and moustache-bearer, has often commented about how we are being exploited here for views and clicks, as unpaid content contributors—that we are ourselves the product, and don’t even realise it.

His critique is valid for social media: it’s what Instagram and Facebook are all about. I don’t find being commodified like that objectionable: everybody has their price, just make sure your price isn’t cheap. I don’t feel the criticism at all about Quora, though, because they’ve been so bungling about the social media and the commodification.

There’s some republishing of clickbait, though it’s usual suspects, and tends to be quite superficial—the stuff that made me dodge the Facebook Quora Feed and the Quora Digest. There’s high Google ranking. There’s the cult of the Top Writer Superstar—though I doubt that’s been actively cultivated by Quora Inc., and I don’t think the Top Writer award has actually done that much. I think the commodification is something of an afterthought in Quora HQ. In truth, if there’s any accusation I can level at HQ, at this latter-day, Through-The-Looking-Glass stage of Silicon Valley capitalism—it’s that they aren’t commodifying us enough.

At the core

Scott Welch has talked about these more, and he has the depth of industry savvy to be able to talk about these more; so I do defer to him. But these are the malaises that drive the annoyances that we see on the surface.

Lack of leadership

Who’s running the show? Is there a CTO? Is there a CFO? Why are all the high profile managers jumping ship? Does D’Angelo even exist, or is he a scripted bot? If he’s a scripted bot, can we at least improve the frequency of his posts?

Lack of vision

What problem is Quora solving? Is it an expert forum? Is it a social forum? Is it a knowledge repository, crowdsourcing Doug Lenat’s Cyc? Is it a training bed for AI bots? For intranet knowledge bases? Where do we writers fit in? Why are we here and not on StackExchange?

Lack of sustainability

It’s been six years of burning through venture capital; even by Silly-Con Valley standards, that’s been a while. Is there a plan for profitability? Is there a not-for-profit exit strategy? Is there a strategy at all? And will there be a Quora in five years’ time?

(Nick Nicholas’ answer to What will happen to Quorans if Quora shuts down and/or just stops in the future? Is it made to last forever? If not, what will happen to our answers? Is there anything that Quora can do to prevent this and save all of our work?)

These issues are not getting visibly fixed. And these, in the end, will unhouse us all.

And ultimately that’s why I loathe Quora. Because it’s given us a magnificent salon to hang out in—so long as you don’t annoy the bouncers, and you don’t relax and have too much fun. But it’s not meeting the mortgage instalments. And I’m not looking forward to the day when Quora is featured on Flip or Flop, as a Short sale.

We don’t know we are sleeping while we are. So how can we say we are awake?

How can we say that our constitution is designed futuristically?

Can we say that the Australian accent is a blend of the American and British ones?