Why do they allow an algorithm to do it?
Scalability.
That’s all there is. Doesn’t mean it’s great, doesn’t mean it’s always wrong, either.
And I’m far from defender of how Quora mods do things, but I concede: the mod bots are often stupid, but they are not useless.
Why do they allow a broken algorithm to do it?
Because we’re not in 2030 yet. And these kinds of bot decisions actually need more smarts than a bot can currently muster.
Ah, Mez. I was going to dodge this, but I won’t.
What’s the danger I care about most? Not the planet blowing up, and not what happens to America in isolation from the rest of the planet. (I mean, of course I care, but not most. And boy, will there be a bunch of isolation from the rest of the planet for the next four years.)
The danger I care about most is the dissolution of our civilisation—of life as we know it. Even if we survive it, I don’t think life will be worth living as cavepeople.
What are the biggest threats to life as we know it? The rise of the robots (Tom Higgins, I never did read your “bring on the Singularity” answer; sorry!) And global warming.
The rise of the robots could go well or it could go very very bad. Global warming will only go very very bad.
Who made sure that we couldn’t stop global warming when we had a decent chance to? Who’s working to make sure we still don’t?
Plenty of people who are going to find life even more unpleasant than their neighbours, when shit goes down and their neighbours look for scapegoats. Including lots of ex-presidents, and lots of reactionary and (sadly) libertarian pundits. Lots of political strategists (Frank Luntz might “accept the science” now, but he targeted the science back at the time of Kyoto). Lots of “sceptics”.
But you know, if I had to pick one guy, I’ll pick the most influential denialist politician, and he’s the most dangerous because he’s still in office, and he’s still influencing environmental policy in the US—which is where leadership has had to come from. I give you the Gentleman from Oklahoma, the king of snowballs: Senator Jim Inhofe.
Yeah, yuk it up, Jim.
See you in hell, buddy. Don’t bring your snowball there; it won’t last. Won’t last up above under global warming, either.
Ah, if I should die, think only this of me…
A2A. Why the A2A, Ishan Bhateja? Do you know something I don’t? 🙂
All things pass. You just hope they don’t pass sooner than you’d prefer. Or at the least, sooner than you are ready for it.
If I get banned?
You know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. See Why do I loathe Quora Inc. by Nick Nicholas on The Insurgency. And for that matter Nick Nicholas’ answer to Is there any chance that Quora will turn into a paid website in the upcoming years?.
What would result in there being no more Quora?
Let me run through the things I listed in my blog post.
Not the at times bizarre and unclear moderation. That has chased and will chase away a lot of people, maybe even a lot of the most interesting people; but the bulk will not run into it, and will stick around. And there’s plenty more new users signing up, to make the churn of people dispensable.
Not the UI churn. It may be the most annoying UI out on the market, but it’s no more than an annoyance.
Not the taciturn customer relations. Customer relations really only need to cultivate the top writers to keep them writing (80/20 rule), and in fact from all indications, they do. (Modulo moderation.)
Not the commodification of users (the user is the product). The masses on social media are fine with being commodified. Including me.
Quora is supposed to be a business, and if it fails, it will be for lack of it succeeding as a viable business, and (failing that) succeeding in being acquired as a viable business. (Not-for-profits are businesses too, btw; but that’s not the model Quora has been pursuing to date.)
Like I’ve said:
I’m not privy to what’s going on with these. Neither are you. Neither are the shareholders, because Silicon Valley startups are not capitalism as you or I know it, and there are no shareholders. I do hope the venture capital dudes know what’s going on.
But that’s what will do it. There’s lots that I don’t like about Quora, myself, but I’m still here, so obviously there’s enough to compensate. That goes even more for the majority who aren’t as annoyed about Quora. If Quora fails, it won’t come from its current user base.
The greatest benefit of adding topics to posts is that it allows posts to be distributed in feeds to people who follow a specific topic. This has become all the more necessary, as Quora in its wisdom has removed the ability to assign a topic to an entire blog.
Of course, Quora has severely reduced the visibility of posts in feeds, and unless you actually subscribe to a blog, chances are you won’t see any posts in your feed anyway. I have seen posts in my feed only rarely, and I’m not completely sure that wasn’t a bug.
Topics do appear as a filter in the search page, so they can be used to retrieve posts in search. I doubt the topic filter functionality is used all that much though.
Likewise, you can browse all content associated with a topic, and that will bring up posts as well as answers. I suspect that functionality is used even less.
Ah, a good question.
Once again, I wanted to be all contrarian and say, “In your FACE, Mentor! The apprentice is now DA MASTER! Bow down, ye mortals!”
I can’t. Geez, I wish I could. But I’m falling in line with the others.
Of course, I don’t do mentorhood anyway. Or rather, I love mentoring (you may have noticed), but I haven’t had much experience or expectation of being a mentee. I am arrogant enough that I rocked up to Quora and went, right, I’m writing here, and you can all fall in line.
(Yes, I know mentee is an analogical formation in English. Sometimes English gets it right!)
Now, there are people here whose writing and character I look up to. But I don’t regard that as inspiration or mentoring; just as peers I admire.
My first reaction was to check out the Magister, Michael Masiello. Because last I’d checked, I’d just pipped him to the post of 1000 answers:
To the victor, the spoils by Nick Nicholas on Gallery of Awesomery
(Snapshot taken just before I pipped him to the post)
Well, I checked, and he’s on 2k followees and I’m on 1.5k. We both feel that’s pretty random, and well, meh. Doesn’t change much of anything.
The cheerleader beside us is Dimitra Triantafyllidou. She’d opted out of running for 1000 answers, because she was resuming studies and wouldn’t have the time to; but she was happy to cheerlead. She has 620 followers. But she does have a quill now. 🙂
How does that feel? She’s good. I love her answers, and I love that she smacks me down when I’m wrong. (I don’t love it too much!) She’s got fewer followers? Meh. She’s good. It’s not important that she has fewer followers than me, or that Michael has more. The Enemy shall not have purchase in sowing envy between us. Dimitra’s got the followers that matter.
Like ME!
Same goes for any number of smart, perceptive Quorans with integrity, who happen to have fewer followers than me. Clarissa Lohr, say, one of the most judicious thinkers I know. Or new linguist on the block, Daniel Ross, whose every answer is a joyfully read dissertation. (A somewhat longish dissertation. 🙂 Or Jennifer Edeburn, who is fast becoming the third angel on my shoulder, and I don’t think Manichaeanism is meant to work like that.
They have fewer followers than me? Pft. I learned from them, and I learn from them. And you will too. The follower count is random, and as much as anything, it’s about tone and not content.
I didn’t keep enough notes as I went, Habib le toubib. But inasmuch as I am a popular user now:
I think these all converge around the same time. My most viral answer *sigh* topped 25k views in a day, this past month; but viral answers are really not what I’m about here, and they’re not much of a metric for me being popular as me.
It’s a someone idiosyncratic method, and while it worked for me in both Klingon and Lojban, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for a natural language.
I did lots of translating from English. Lots and lots of translating. With some experimenting, trying to work out what looked more fluent.
(The question of what the hell fluency means in a made up language is a fascinating one. It does in fact have an answer. But that’s not what you are asking me here.)
This helped me memorize words and grammar which otherwise would have been a chore. And it helped me prioritise what I actually needed to remember for my purposes.
It occurs to me that one of the reasons this is a useful way of learning conlangs, is that there is a dearth of reading material. I did not need to do this for Esperanto, because there was plenty to read. Although I strongly suspect that’s exactly what the very first generation of Esperantists did.
Can I? Sure.
Should I? No.
Will I? Challenge accepted.
And just remember what happened to Lyonel Perabo’s ears, last time I tried to record some French…
Only coz you asked, Habib le toubib:
Lagniappe: my Klingon version (http://www.opoudjis.net/Klingon/…):