Category: Uncategorized

Now, I did not report the latest font change to comments here, because it does not pass the test for posts here: a user not being able to tell whether the UX change is a feature or a bug. This is clearly an intentional change.

So I’ll link to this post on the comment font change instead: A letter to Quora on typography by Martin Silvertant on Typo/graphic.

But I have just been confronted by this quilt of comment fonts:

https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-p…

Sans serif for the notification of the comment. Spindly Illegible Serif for the actual comment. Sans serif for my response to the comment.

And you know, I just gotta wonder now…

The most successful one has been Blissymbols; it was conceived of as an auxlang, but has it seen usage helping disabled children acquire language.

The sample phrase on Wikipedia is:

Person-1st Verb-feeling-fire Verb-legs house camera-move
“I want to go to the cinema”

I’m 45.

I would not like to go forward. It’s already started being downhill physically, and I’m happy to take the leisurely route towards senectitude.

Not back to 16. I wasn’t really socialised back then, even if I was at my most physically rigorous.

Not back to 20. Still not properly socialised, and pretty adrift in what I was going to do with myself and who I was.

(I’m still adrift about what I’m going to do when I grow up. Life really is this thing that just happens to you.)

I’d like to go back to 25. When I was starting my PhD, was forming friends for the first time. Before I realised that it was not going to get me a job; before I realised that life just happens to you; before I was compromised and jaded. Back when everything seemed to be opening up for me.

People Rank

What languages does Quora support?

You don’t need an invite any more for Spanish. You do need an invite for French, since it is still in Beta. https://fr.quora.com/join?code=0

Outside of the currently supported languages (English, Spanish, French in Beta):

If you ask D’Angelo, German and Italian: they’re next up in the plan. Launching a beta for Quora en français by Adam D’Angelo on The Quora Blog.

If you ask Clarissa Lohr: https://www.quora.com/What-are-t…

I think I would have chosen Hindi, Tamil and Russian next. Maybe Arabic.

If you ask me, LATIN! Praeclarum enim esset!!!¡!!!11!! Ond Englisc! Maciaþ Mierce grēat āġēan!

So. Let’s approach this a little more coldly.

Quora is not Wikimedia, and Quora is not a non-for-profit, and Quora is not out there to save the world. Would that it were so, but it’s not. Quora is a business. Or rather, Quora is trying to become a business. Which means Quora’s got to be all about the benjamins: the Venture Capitalists’ benjamins in the short term, the advertisers’ benjamins in the long term.

So its choices of languages have to be strategic.

What language choices are strategic?

• Languages that don’t already have a strong competitor website in place, and that aren’t likely to firewall Quora. As User has pointed out to me, that rules out China, which has Zhihu (Q&A website); and Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora aren’t enough to sustain a zh.quora.com on their own. It does not rule out French and German, where the localised equivalents have not done well: Séverine Godet’s answer to Why is Gozil (French version of Quora) not as popular as Quora?; What is the German equivalent of Quora?
• Languages spoken by lucrative demographics. That presumably rules out Hausa, for example.
• Languages whose lucrative demographics aren’t already comfortable using English Quora: the point is to grow market share, and to grow it in benjamins. That may (may) rule out Indian languages. But I’d have thought it also rules out German, if not Italian and French. I’ve seen a lot of French and German users here lukewarm about the prospect of Quora in their language.
• Languages that Silicon Valley VCs are likely to be wowed by. Here we get into identity politics, and Sam Morningstar, please don’t hit me. But permit me the idle speculation:
• A bunch of Silicon Valley VCs are likely to be wowed by Spanish, because it’s the default foreign language in California.
• A bunch of Silicon Valley VCs are likely to be wowed by French, German, and Italian, because those are the default prestige foreign languages in the Anglosphere (Britain, and those under British influence). I paused about including Italian; but music and art and the Renaissance have likely bought it a place at the table, rather than advertiser benjamins.
• A bunch of Silicon Valley VCs are likely not to be wowed by languages they have a cultural cringe against. This is irresponsible speculation, but: I have seen Indians on Quora beg for Indian language support, and I have seen Indians on Quora pooh-pooh Indian language support. Indians who have ended up as VCs in Cali, I suspect, are going to be among the latter: they loved English so much, they moved to the States. They may be biased against sending VC money back home, when being Indian on Quora in English is what they are all about. Same would go for any Chinese VCs in Cali.
• A bunch of Silicon Valley VCs are likely not to be wowed by languages seen to have been a bust for internationalisation in the past. Orkut did not fail because it was Big In Brazil and Immense In India; Orkut failed because of structural mismanagement. But “Big In Brazil” became a joke in Silicon Valley, so I can see Portuguese being demoted in the wow-factor list, among Valley VCs. Same goes for Indian languages.

My own more considered opinion: definitely Russian, as the monopoly of VK (social network) in Russia shows, and probably Arabic. There’s Benjamins to be had there. Unless…

• Languages that Silicon Valley VCs are likely to have politically-motivated distaste for, which outweighs the benjamins to be had.

I have no idea whether VCs in the Valley are so impractical as to let their cultural and political predilections outweigh their nose for money. But you gotta admit. If they are, that would explain French, German and Italian. Which I, as a cultural European, am fricking STOKED to see announced; but which I don’t think are where the benjamins are at.

This was answered by Laura Hale with the data available to her in 2015:

Laura Hale’s answer to Does Quora have any black employees? I read that tech firms in Silicon Valley face challenges in recruiting and retaining minority employees.

From what I can tell, the answer appears to be zero African American employees, while Asian employees represent 55% of Quora’s employees. This is an ethnically diverse group though, and includes people of Chinese, Iranian and Indian descent among others.

The reaction of Quorans to the question even being posed is… enlightening:

Adam Nyhan’s answer to Does Quora have any black employees? I read that tech firms in Silicon Valley face challenges in recruiting and retaining minority employees.

As of this writing, Quora supports English, Spanish, a beta for French has been announced, and there are plans for German and Italian.

Metaphorical reference to any visit to a prestigious or desirable site as a pilgrimage? Sure, English does that. In fact, right here on Quora:

Why do people (like to) say “I made a pilgrimage to the Apple Store” as if it were Mecca?

Is it true that all mafiosi must make an annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas?

Pratik Bakshi’s answer to What are some amazing facts about Pokémon GO, both as a game and out in the world?: According to reddit ” Playing Pokémon Go in India is almost a pilgrimage.”

With the anglosphere mainstream being either Protestant or Secular, it’s been quite easy for them to use the word more metaphorically these days.

Remind me Chrysovalanti: is the Greek word you’d use προσκύνημα? Because pilgrimage is certainly one of its meanings, but it applies rather more broadly than pilgrimage: it applies to any veneration of relics or saints, and does not require that you travel far. Of course, the veneration of relics is no more Protestant or Secular than a pilgrimage is.

The analogy is not with juice as in orange juice, as suggested by Dobhran Black’s answer to Could someone tell how electric power resembles juice?. Clearly there’s an analogy with fluids to be made; but why juice and not water? Or quicksilver?

Or blood?

The analogy is with vital juices, a concept that was kicking around as a literal concept from the ancient Greeks until modern medicine, and that indeed persists even now, both metaphorically, and in reference to plants (to judge from Google Books).

Vital juices encompasses the fluids moving within a living organism, that allow it to keep living. If the vital juices are flowing through the organism, then it does things like grow (if it’s a plant) and move (if it’s an animal).

If there’s electricity flowing through a machine, then it does things that resemble life: it is animated, so to speak. It moves, it whirrs, it does things.

So, the similarity is both the fluidity of electricity, and the vitality it confers.