At a guess: they’ve been deleted by the comment posters. The notification isn’t updated to reflect that the comment has been deleted.

Originally Answered:

Why does Quora send me a note that: “The question needs to be Improved”, when I only answered the question?

Quora isn’t trying to work out what is wrong with the question. Its bots have picked up something is wrong (whether or not something is wrong, because Quora’s bots are not as smart as Quora assumes they are). But imagine if Quora trusted its bots to reword your question!

The horror… The horror…

So instead, Quora is bouncing the question for rewording back to people who it thinks might plausibly understand, better than its lobotomised bots do, what the question actually means.

Candidate #1: the question asker.

Candidate #2: anyone who answered the question. If you answered the question, then there is a better than even chance that you understood what the question meant.

To any popular or Top Writers: can you anonymously answer this question in such a way that we can guess who you are?

It was a very entertaining meta-thread, of people posting in their own style, and having people guess who they are. When people guessed correctly, people removed their anonymity. Or they didn’t, so others could keep guessing.

Someone said in comments, “but this question invites people to guess the identity of anonymous posters, and that isn’t allowed under Quora rules.”

“Oh come on, you stick in the mud,” I thought. “Surely Quora Moderation is not going to be so robotic as to completely miss the point of the joke.”

My fans and followers and fellows. If I ever say again “Surely Quora Moderation is not going to be so robotic…”, do me a favour.

Kick me before I even finish that sentence.

EDIT: Mod-proof variant now up as a blog: Guess The Quoran

A2A, but Lance LaSalle’s answer says it all; thanks, Lance.

Executive summary: nah. In a recent answer, I was reduced to begging readers to upvote the other answer first. I’d link, but that would mean even more people upvoting my answer instead of the other one.

(Just Vote #1: Amy Dakin. That’s all I’m sayin’.)

I’ll add one metric *I* use for A2A, which also gets surfaced (at least some of the time) in the UI for answers: how many questions the poster has already answered on the topic. That can establish either that they know what they’re talking about, or that they’re at least persistent.

Not a surprise: Greek βό(ι)δι vo(i)ði is used to refer primarily to someone unmannered or dull.

Per the Triantafyllidis dictionary:

2. (μτφ.) μειωτικός ή υβριστικός χαρακτηρισμός για άνθρωπο: α. αργόστροφο· βλάκας: Είναι ~, δεν καταλαβαίνει τίποτα. ΦΡ σαν το ~ στο παχνί*. β. άξεστο, αγροίκο, αναίσθητο· ζώο: Mε πάτησε κι ούτε συγγνώμη δεν είπε, το ~. γ. παχύσαρκο: Έγινε (σαν) ~ από το πάχος.

(metaphor) a contemptuous or insulting description of a person who is (a) slow, stupid: “He’s an ox, he understands nothing; like an ox at the trough”; (b) uncouth, insensitive: “He stepped on me and didn’t even apologise; what an ox”; (c) obese: “he so obese, he’s like an ox”.

Quoran that’s influenced my views the most, you say?

Jae Alexis Lee.

She may well think I’m stalking her by now, with all the shout outs I’ve been giving her, but there’s a reason for it.

It’s a bad business to rank people, but:

• You asked about influencing views, not deepening views, or learning more about the world. That rules out my top 5 Quorans. 🙂
• I appreciate people who challenge my views on the world. They know who they are, because I keep thanking them for it.
• The social/political domain I think I’ve learned the most about since alighting here is transgender issues. I’m not quite sure how that happened; I think it started with me liking Elliott Mason’s English grammar posts, and then getting everyone he ever upvoted on my feed. 🙂
• Jae both talks about transgender issues, and challenges my views on the world as a card carrying SJW (or is that Social Justice Cleric?), and she talks about both with passion and lucidity.
• Jae has also taught me how not to hate comment blockers. Well, how not to hate comment blockers who have a reason for comment blocking I can appreciate, anyway.

Runner up—although again, ranking people is a foul thing to do.

Sam Morningstar. (Clarissa, you’re not surprised, are you?)

Similar reasons, maybe less on the left in identity politics, but again, clear and lucid, both within and beyond his home topic of Native American issues.

I miss Sam.

Oh, and Michael Cobb’s answer mentioned Dan Holliday so I wouldn’t have to.

I’m going with the Birds of the Netherworld. stixoi.info: Του κάτω κόσμου τα πουλιά

It’s got a lot of what makes Modern Greek culture so rich:

• Cryptic, magical dread. The lyricist based it on a nightmare he had; but the song was released in 1974, during the death-throes of the Greek dictatorship—so people assumed what they would about it.
• A firmly entrenched notion of the Netherworld, continuing from pagan times, as opposed to Christian Heaven and Hell
• Casual mentions of antiquity and the landscape; not as obeisance, but simply as inheritance
• And the dark sorrows of the land, that the tourists miss, beneath those gleaming beaches
• And all against the stern modal 9/4 thud of the verse, and lament of the chorus.

You can have your Dylans; I’ve always thought the Greek art-bouzouki scene did a far greater job of true poetry in its lyrics, even when it wasn’t subording actual Nobel prize winners like Odysseas Elytis. The fact that Greece continues to keep singers, songwriters, and lyricists separate really helps there.

The translations at http://stixoi.info are horrid. Here’s mine.

Time, envenomed, lingers
in the alleys of the Netherworld to find you.
And out of work for thirteen centuries, he seeks
your ark—and to drink your blood.

Flagellators and the Clashing Rocks await you.
A maiden keeps watch amidst the gold.
The Cyclades are hanging from her ears.
And her bed is the Killer’s den.

Hidden are the secret words in the seashell.
Hidden is the magic of the sea in the North Wind.
One day the oil lamp will go out in the house,
and then you will find neither door nor lock.

The birds and peacocks of the Netherworld
are making you a dress of light and night.
Men gnash and grind their teeth:
They leap, they run, and seize you half-way.

User has mentioned in comment to question the magazine El Popola Ĉinio (“From the People’s China”), and I remember its impeccable glossiness and low-key propaganda.

Argh! I did read about this at a bookstore the other day, in a collection of essays about the posterity of Mao’s Little Red Book. But no, I didn’t buy the book.

The way the book put it, the Communist Party in the ’50s was sympathetic to the aims of Esperanto, and saw it as a suitable, non-colonialist vehicle for getting their message out. I think the book subtly hinted that they were a bit naive about the propaganda efficacy of Esperanto. But in the ’50s and ‘60s, I suspect it was not that absurd a vehicle: most English-language vehicles would likely have been closed.

(Who was that American journalist who’d interviewed Mao in the ’30s, and Mao did an interview with to help prepare for Nixon’s visit? Not all English-language vehicles were closed; but the audience was certainly not as reflexively sceptical.)

Yes. But only in comments. 😛

(Nick Nicholas’ answer to What do you think about people who disagree with you in the comment section for your answers?)

Well, I’ve been criticising Quora for a while. Not with the vehemence of, say, Feifei or Scott Welch, but certainly not with the deference of Garrick or Edward Conway, either.

Not censored. Yet. Though given my last few exchanges (my edits are open to be viewed), who knows, we’ll see.

I disagree that Quora is paying attention to criticism, and that therefore positive criticism is valued. I will admit that it has responded to some of the critiques in Why did ZDnet run an article claiming that Quora has a misogyny problem?—but with a delay of maybe a year. The ability to block comments per question was implemented a few months ago; how many years has it been asked for?

And you know, Quora doesn’t need to censor people, to tune out their criticism (should it hypothetically choose to tune out their criticism). That’s the beauty of robotic application of BNBR: you can wait till the robot finds something instead. In any case, much too gauche to do that overtly.

There are alternatives, hypothetically speaking. You can throw people out of the Quora Writers Feedback Group, for example, like happened to Scott. Or you can publicly say “you’re always negative about what we do, so I’m ignoring your feedback”, like Marc Bodnick just said to Robert Frost. Or you just decline to say anything in response and forward emails to /dev/null, as appears to have been the default.