They are subsets (Unicode block) of the Unicode repertoire of characters:
Original question: What is the oddest ethnic mix you’ve seen?
With the obvious disclaimer that “odd” is not a value judgement.
Nick Kyrgios. Greek–Malaysian Australian.
… Kyrgios is odd, alright, but not primarily because of his ancestry…
Hm.
I liked Steven de Rooij’s and Mujahid I. Ally’s answers, from the blockee’s perspective, and hated everyone else’s.
So clearly I’m out of sync with the community norm.
Let me write an answer that addresses my discomfort.
In normal circumstances, questions and answers are an interaction between people, and follow the socialising norms for such interactions. That includes associating respect for a person with respect for what they say, and vice versa. And the social norm is that when someone gives you offence, and you accordingly sever ties with them, you are no longer exposed to contact with them, and you do not exchange social pleasantries with them.
This doesn’t happen here; as Joshua Engel decried in a comment, “block” here doesn’t actually mean “block” (by which I presume he means, “block + mute”).
The result is the question OP poses: blocking yet upvoting.
I’d argue that this is not normal for human interaction (“feels weird”, as Carlos Matias La Borde and Jeff Fuhrer put it). It’s not normal to refuse contact with people and then applaud people. So what’s going on?
Here’s some theories:
I guess I can understand the reaction. I still resent it. I have the luxury of resenting it because I manage to avoid contentious topics, and am not a TW; I’ve never blocked (though I have muted two people), and I’ve been blocked only twice (Which people on Quora do you believe have blocked you unfairly and why?). So it’s still a big deal to me. (One of the latter has turned up in comments here, as an avowed trigger-happy blocker; and to him I say: do not fricking upvote me.)
But I also resent it because I find the imbalance of the interaction dehumanising. That’s not how people interact anywhere else, offline or online. No, my words are not separate from me. No, you don’t get to hate the sin and applaud the virtue from the same person. If you’re going to take offence at me, and block interaction from me to you, it offends me that you still get to interact with me at your discretion; and an upvote is not an interaction with disembodied words, it’s an interaction with me.
And if I matter so little to you that you don’t even remember blocking me, I don’t want your upvote.
The community has been trying plenty to educate users:
How do I get started using Quora?
To the extent that Quora Inc has posted official answers on the Using Quora topic, Quora Inc has also been trying to educate users.
Hands up those of you that have never seen either.
What Quora is not doing effectively is steer new users to either of those resources (in fact, force feed them). You get an account, boom, you’re in, good luck. Because the UX orthodoxy is that sites should be self-evident, and all onboarding is a bad thing, apparently. (See also Vogon Constructor Fleet.)
…
The answer details of What are the important things about Quora’s onboarding process?, written in 2010, say “I believe Quora’s on-boarding process to be the best in the industry.” I find that prospect terrifying…
You can’t. Refer How can I see my Quora PeopleRank? PeopleRank values and the PeopleRank algorithm is not divulged, although there are good guesses about what it involves.
And given that Quora Stats has been broken for years, even if Quora did release people’s PeopleRank, you likely still wouldn’t be able to see it.
Australia:
Depends on your budget. In order:
Yes, to Australians, Europe might as well be just one country.
6 countries, 6 weeks. Or, as we said to each other at the conclusion of it: “we’re too old for this shit.”
“Good thing I’ve read Brian Bi’s answer to When, and how, will I be able to download all of the Quora content I have produced, like the Facebook and Twitter feed export options?.”
Followed closely by:
“I guess I should check out Reddit after all…”
–tōr is an agent suffix:
Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges (misscanned)
a. The primary suffixes τᾱ, τηρ, τορ, τρο, ευ, denoting the agent or doer of an action, are masculine.
…
3. τορ (nom. -τωρ): ῥή-τωρ orator (ἐρέω shall say, ἐρ-, ῥε-), εἴ-ρη-κα have spoken, κτίσ-τωρ founder (κτίζω found, κτιδ-), σημάντωρ commander poet. (σημαίνω give a signal, σημαν-).
-τωρ and its Latin cognate -tor (e.g. gladita-tor, domina-tor, can-tor), is an Indo-European suffix.
Joachim Pense is right that it’s neither emergent nor inherent, but selected for by moderation.
However, the extent of humourlessness really varies by topics. Topics inherently select for different balances of the factual and the anecdotal. Survey Question is awash with anecdote, and humour follows it naturally. Where the topic inherently allows for it, a community of practice can develop around prominent answerers, so that there can be emergent humorousness. But I’d argue it’s quarantined.
Some of those polymaths also try to inject levity into answers, so long as they are still providing relevant answers. I think a fair few of them succeed.
See also: Why is there very little humor on Quora?
A2A by Pegah Esmaili, who is Iranian. And not Persian. So I’m not going to say “Persian”.
Iranian #1: I am an avid follower of Pegah Esmaili, and her combat boots. And of course I am going to say nice things about Iranians, and Azeri Iranians in particular, because when Pegah starts wiping out all men, I want her to get to Lyonel Perabo before she gets to me.
Pegah and Lyonel’s mutually assured destruction by Nick Nicholas on Gallery of Awesomery
Iranian #2: I have a crush on Somi Arian, and really, do you blame me?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Do6nh6SPSH8
Fierce! (The lyrics are somewhat unsophisticated, but that’s the curse of Metal in general.)
If I am to judge on the basis of Ms Esmaili and Ms Arian, Iranians are proud, independent, intelligent, fierce, and very very scary.
Of course I would not generalise about all Iranians on the basis of two people. That would be silly.
Iranians #3, #4, #5: I hanged out with some Iranian linguistics students while doing my Master’s, 20 years ago.
They were very different to each other. Like, crazy different. Like, every time I got together with them, it was like
From right to left, the Iranian linguists of Melbourne in the mid 90s: Mohammed, Hussein, Ghodrat…
… hang on, there was noone choleric in the group.
Oh yeah, silly me:
Though Ms Arian’s thesis on Kant & Nietzsche was a decade later.
(I could start adding photos from Pegah Esmaili’s answer to Can the wonderful people of Quora upload a picture or two of themselves?, but then she’d kill me before Lyonel.)
So, Iranians are different from each other. What else?
Well, Nick Nicholas’ answer to What comes to your mind when someone mentions Turkey (the country)? was: “the neighbour”.
Iranians? They’re the neighbour’s friend. Or the neighbour’s mentor. Or the neighbour’s coach. Or something.
Which means there’s some things about them that are familiar, and they come as a pleasant surprise. Azeris have an unfair advantage over other Iranians, because they actually speak the neighbour’s language. Persians have an unfair advantage, because they’re Indo-Europeans, and I actually learned two or three words.
Eh, خُدا حافِظ? Did I copy paste that right?
Their vast pride in their history is something I understand, at least intellectually, as a Greek. And they have a majestic culture; they were worthy adversaries to have had 25 centuries ago,
and it’s pretty cool that Greeks (via Ottoman Turkish) use farsi to mean “speak a language fluently”. The Shahnameh is the only epic poem I’ve been able to read all the way through. Their drawings have a filigree delicacy, even if they look strangely Chinese.
There are some things that are alien about them too, sure. The theocracy is scary to me. The mandatory hijab ditto, although the clear halfheartedness with which it is worn in Tehran is a source of ongoing mirth.
Skater Girls Seen in Vanak Sq. in Tehran, Iran
Their kabobs can be amazing—but they seem to think that poultry and pomegranate syrup work together (Fesenjān).
(Pomengranate on poultry? Really?)
Even more scary is the whole open necked shirt thing, which they horrifyingly have in common with the Greek ruling party: Why did neither Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, nor most of his entourage, wear ties during his recent visit to Iran? Is it fashion or politics?
But OP did say “not politicians”.
So here’s a non-political shoutout, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr… , to the non-politicians of Iran:
So! Dostānam! We can use raki/arak for the toast, right?
Geez, it was just a suggestion, Ms Arian…
