Author: admin

I received this in email today and am passing it on, anonymously.

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I am a moderator of that subreddit r/indianpeoplequora.

With reference to your blog post: How Reddit trolls have infiltrated Quora:

I have removed all those posts where the users show they have asked troll questions on Quora. I have even updated the rules of the subreddit to not allow such things in the future.

https://www.reddit.com/r/indianp…

I’ve created that subreddit a long time ago just for posting funny Quora question/answers written by Indians. Here’s an example of one of the earlier posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/indianp…

I didn’t know all this would have happened.

Regarding trolls, I’ve seen a few on Quora before the subreddit even existed. I’ve seen one vandalize content and ask harassing/creepy questions. I’ve reported them to the Quora admins and had them banned.

The ones you have pointed out:

• Hardick Chopra seems to have been banned by Quora moderation. https://www.quora.com/profile/Ha…
• Raden Smith has apologized for trolling and said he will never do it again. https://www.quora.com/Where-can-…

Regarding the Reddit accounts,

The Reddit account of Raden Smith has deleted his 1-yr old account, and the other has been banned from r/indianpeoplequora.

I am not that active on either Reddit or Quora these days, so I have added more moderators to keep things under control.

Cheers!

Habib, so many good answers here with allusion to the US Constitution, and I couldn’t hope to exceed them or even reach them.

And then, I remembered a different country’s constitution. Not even its current version.

In the 60s, Greek leftist youth protested the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis and the subsequent upheaval in the country, by chanting “114!”

Article 114, the final article of the 1952 Constitution of Greece. It’s article 120 in the 2008 revision of the current Constitution of Greece.

Σύνταγμα

H τήρηση του Συντάγματος επαφίεται στον πατριωτισμό των Eλλήνων, που δικαιούνται και υποχρεούνται να αντιστέκονται με κάθε μέσο εναντίον οποιουδήποτε επιχειρεί να το καταλύσει με τη βία.

Upholding the Constitution is a responsibility entrusted to the patriotism of the Greek people, who are entitled and obligated to resist by any means necessary whoever attempts to do away with it by force.

Mutatis mutandis, Habib le toubib? You could do worse than this as a closer.

To me, it sounds like a less mumbly Turkish, and certainly much more like Turkish than, for example, Azeri sounds to me. Having read the other answers, there are moments where I hear something reminiscent of Russian palatalisation, but they are very infrequent.

That’s of course proves that I shouldn’t be reading the other answers before answering questions like this.

At minimum, other users on Quora, per the letter of the policy.

Quora’s answer to What is Quora’s “Be Nice, Be Respectful” policy?

Increasingly, it appears from Moderation decisions, also public figures who are not already users on Quora:

Habib Fanny: BNBR against public figures not on Quora by Nick Nicholas on The Insurgency

See in particular the comments to that report.

See also Quora Moderation — Election Season PSA by Marc Bodnick on The Quora Moderation Blog—which first announced that not being nice and respectful to political candidates was unacceptable. The rationale for this being that abusive criticism of political leaders makes Quora an unwelcoming space for those leaders’ supporters.

It certainly is not regarded by most language teachers as important. Latin and Greek prose composition, which required students to produce original text (even if as a pastiche of Thucydides or Caesar) was huge a century ago, and I get the impression is extinct now. There are some ancient Greek text books that trying to teach the language like any modern language, immersively and with students conversing in the language before reading it. But they are in the minority.

Is the contemporary avoidance of production correct? My hunch is, you have a slightly better understanding of the nuances underlying syntactic or lexical choices in passages, if you yourself have had to go through them in language production.

But it is only a slight advantage, and most people learning classical languages now probably don’t need that level of nuanced understanding anyway. After all, they can always read one of the many translations around if that’s what they’re really after.

Blogs not already mentioned that I’m subscribed to:

• The Insurgency: “A critique of Quora, and a critique of critiques of Quora.” Blog hosting various criticisms of Quora, which exposes those criticisms to scrutiny.
• Bug? or Feature? “In which we discuss and analyze ambiguous and elusive Quora ux specimens.” Successor to at least one major aspect of the late Rage Against Quora: UI features that make one say ¿Que?
• The Still-Alive Poets Society. “This is a blog where Quorans can share their original poems. Both poems written for answers and original posts are accepted, but only original work.”
• Dispatches from the Other Language Quoras. “A blog to discuss peculiarities, differences, and experiences in Quoras other than English.”

… after months of dodging the bullet by using Safari.

… Yeeeeeech.

First suspect thing: how many months does it take to roll out a consistent Quora experience to all platforms? Really? Is that a feature and not a bug?

Second: Why does a “story” I’ve clicked stay shaded? What does that mean? That I’ve read it? What if the “story” was short enough that I didn’t need to click it? Why did I need these distracting shade trackers? Who asked for them?

Third: “Read 1 Answer”? Why “Read”? I wouldn’t know what “1 answer” means under a question?

Fourth: You’re hiding all the other “stories” with this zoomy lightbox thing? Why do you want to disorient me?

Fifth: When I keep scrolling your infernal lightbox down, I end up … scrolling it off the screen? What if I scrolled too fast? What if I wasn’t done with it? What visual metaphor has ever involved scrolling a modal window off screen, to begin with? Anywhere?

What visual metaphor scrolls a modal window halfway off the screen, so I can peer underneath? It’s meant to be a popup, not a convertible sunroof! Why do you make me doubt my sanity?

And if the popup is going to be a convertible sunroof, why does it disappear off screen when I’ve scrolled 3/4 of the way off the screen, rather than all the way off the screen?

And if the modal window is for a “story” shorter than a screenful, why is the modal window flush with the top of the screen, and not in the middle of the screen? Have you ever seen a modal window do that? Does Quora like disconcerting its users? (Don’t answer that.)

Sixth… I reload Quora (in another window) and lightboxes go away again. WTF?

And if that is a feature and not a bug, how can I ensure that I don’t get lightboxes back?

Seventh…

…

… WHAT DO THEY PUT IN THE WATER IN THE UX CANTEEN IN MOUNTAIN VIEW?!

EDIT: Eighth: The lightbox for when I answer a question… The brightness! It burns! (Because there’s all this gleaming white all of a sudden from a blank white modal window against a grey background; much more distracting than the old answer page, which was somehow just as blank.)

I’ve answered a closely related question:

Nick Nicholas’ answer to How long would it take an isolated group of people to develop what would be considered their own language?

….

[Lots of provisos, which you must read]

A ballpark figure is going to be closer to between 500 and 1000 years. With all the provisos already given.

I love my folks, however problematic things have been between us, and I don’t begrudge them their struggles in a strange land, to do the best they could for their kids. (Maybe their objectivity, but not their struggle.)

But what was it like to be raised by immigrant parents?

Defensive.

Don’t assimilate to those drunkards. Remember your heritage. Stick to your own. We have morals. We have tradition. All they care about is horse races and booze anyway. Of course you’re going to make something yourself. No you’re not going to be a musician. No, you can’t date, you must attend to your studies. [The fact that I felt I needed to get permission!] Surely you’re going to want to go back to the mother country one day. What do you mean, “you could never function in a country without a civil service that works like clockwork”?!

Not a negative overall; I like that it’s given me a detachment from both the majority and the minority cultures, it’s a useful thing. But there’s a lot of sex I missed out on as a result…

They’re all Ancient Greek, really, and they’re all Greek star names from Nick Nicholas’ answer to What are all the Greek star names?

• α Virginis: Stachys is “Ear of Wheat”. It’s Aratus’ name, and the established name Spica is its Latin translation.
• ζ Hydrae: Hydrobius (whatever the name’s provenance) is “living in water” (or in Hydra, I guess)
• β Herculis: Kornephoros is supposed to be “club bearer”. The ancient Greek is in fact korynēphoros; mangling of Ancient Greek appears to be routine in my list. Its alternative name, Rutilicus, is also “a corruption of the Latin word titillicus, meaning ‘armpit’.” (Beta Herculis – Wikipedia)
• ε Virginis: Protrygater is “fore-harvester” (referring to the wine harvest). Again, this is Aratus’ name and the established name, Latin Vindemiatrix meaning ‘the grape-harvestress’, is derived from it.