Nick on Quora

(A) Because Quora in Spanish, French, German, and Italian already exist by now. There may even be more in the future. Maybe.

(B) Because Chris Tou’s answer to Does content on Quora need to be written in English?, from 2011, still holds:

However, there are probably still several good reasons to promote the use of one standardized on a site such as this. For example, using only one language allows everyone to be able to communicate and share. You won’t have someone giving an answer in, say, Chinese, and then have worry about translating it to another language for others to understand.

Another possible reason is that it’s hard to moderate posts in languages you do not understand. Quora relies on a form self-regulated community. Having separate languages promotes segregation and becomes hard for the community to self-regulate unless they spoke that specific language. On a forum where there are more members, that could work, as each specific language community would monitor itself, but Quora is not yet there, I think.

Not using English on Quora does exclude people that don’t speak that language; speaking English is one of the few prereqs to joining here.

So Questions and Answers not in English are verboten on Quora in English. It’s not as clear whether blogs can be not in English (Can I write a Quora blog in a language other than English?); reportedly they used to be explicitly allowed, with provisos of English topics and titles, and the blog जय महाराष्ट्र | Jay Maharashtra is still going strong. See discussion at https://www.quora.com/Can-I-writ…

I have seen comment chat between people in languages other than English, but very infrequently. I have occasionally tried to initiate that, in German and Greek; sometimes, it’s worked.

Clearly from other answers, Quora polices its Top Writer meetup at or near Quora Inc HQ zealously from non-invitees such as spouses or the unquilled.

But the question did not say Top Writer Meetup At Mountain View (2017). It just said Top Writer Meetup (2017).

Whereby I submit to you:

Tom Robinson’s answer to What was the 2017 New York Top Writer’s meetup like?

Tom Robinson, you are a mensch, but you already knew that.

I’m sceptical to what extent mathematics enters into any reasoning about human language (and Lojbanists actually highlight that language is not reducible to truth-conditional logic). But much of what you’re saying is the bet behind Natural semantic metalanguage, which tries to define every concept ever in a language that looks like English, but that has only an extremely small number of primitive words.

NSM was a thing of cruel, adamantine beauty back in the 70s and 80s, when it had just 14 primitives. It was also of course utterly unusable as a practical tool for eliciting meaning. It’s now up to 63.

A favourite party trick of Anna Wierzbicka’s undergrads, at least in my day, was to try to hold conversations in NSM. It can be done. It can’t be done efficiently enough to count as a real conversation; but it does meet a generous definition of “in real time”.

Oh, of course I’m going to give you an Insurgency-tinged answer, Martin!

If Quora Inc were a human, they’d be one of those infuriating people who eat seven meals a day and are still stick-thin, and that chain smoke but will still live to be a hundred. It keeps doing things that the normal laws of nature would have you predict would lead to them being quite sick, but they keep getting away with murder. (Where, for murder, read VC capital.)

I think half a dozen, and one of them on this thread.

Ouch.

It hasn’t been a mystery for any of them, though in one case the blocking seemed to me a massively disproportionate reaction to the offence. But that gets to be their call to make, not mine.

I’ve been blocked and unblocked once on the matters *I* regard as my core domain, the union of Greek and Language. Most of the blocks relate to the matters everyone else likely assumes are my core domain: assuming the mantle of being a Quora critic.

In my estimation, I’ve gained more from those I’ve come to associate through assuming that mantle than I’ve lost.

And that gets to be my call to make.

I gather the question is about how I receive them rather than how I give them, given that this question is related to How important are gender presentation and different pronouns to you as a transgender person?

I’m a bloke. I don’t want to be told I’m not a bloke, and I’ll be rather surprised if someone thinks I’m not a bloke.

I present as a bloke. I’m quite happy to present as a bloke, and despite the occasional “no, I’m secure in my sexuality” joke, I haven’t particularly delved into gender ambiguity.

I have identities that are more pressing and conscious to me than masculinity; then again, masculinity is the kind of identity that fades into the all-encompassing background readily.

Like Kimberly Alexander’s answer says, cis people don’t particularly reflect on gender the way trans people are forced to. Ditto any privileged identity group: the privilege is in not being Othered.

(That’s why I call you Westerners beef-eaters on Quora all the time.)

I have been edified by the margent:

I have found out that the Iliad means ‘The thing about the lion’ and I was just wondering how one would say, ‘The thing about the eagle’.

No. No it doesn’t, and you need to slap whoever told you that in the face. Iliad means ‘The thing about Ilium’, where Ilium was an alternate name of Troy. ‘The thing about the lion’ would be Leontiad, Λεοντιάς, -άδος, ἡ.

And ‘the thing about the eagle’ would accordingly be Aeëtiad or Aëtiad, Αἰετιάς/ Ἀετιάς, -άδος, ἡ.

Yes, I use Latinate transliterations. Deal. 🙂

I’d hate to think that I’ll get her in trouble by writing this. But.

Sihem Soibinet-Fekih is the International Writer Relations—French staff from Quora. Meaning, she’s the Jonathan Brill of French Quora.

I don’t spend a lot of time on the non-English Quoras, because my non-English languages are not that good (there isn’t going to be a Greek Quora), and because my backlog is ongoing and is on English Quora. But I have been consistently impressed with how Sihem has done her job.

I posed on Quora French, a few days back, the question:

Quelle a été la réaction de la communauté de Quora française à la suppression des détails des questions ?

(What was the French Quora community’s reaction to the removal of question details?)

And then went away. It’s been a busy week on the Insurgency, after all.

Pretty promptly after that, Sihem followed the question.

… Can you imagine Brill following that question?

I expect no response from Sihem. And I’m not writing this to get one.

But, Sihem, merci infiniment. Vous avez confirmée le raison de mon respect envers vous.

Because she no longer wishes to be on Quora.

Yes, I know this from her. Several Quora users are in touch with her on Facebook.

No, I am not going to elaborate.

InB4 some shmuck reports this question and it gets deleted…

The Quora Credentials bot is very inflexible, and it’s been difficult to work out how to get it to shut up.

And the credential is being rejected because the Credentials bot doesn’t think it’s helpful; not because it necessarily isn’t helpful.

In the absence of Quora publishing a Guide to getting the Credentials bot to shut the hell up consisting of useful credentials templates (because that would require Quora Inc to actually care about its users), I suggest offering an academic-looking credential. OP has tried the following phrases:

Student, Aspiring Psychologist, Aspiring scientist, Psychologist student

I’d suggest something like

BSc (Psychology), So-And-So University (year of graduation)

Or, at a minimum, a phrase longer than two words, such as

Studying developmental psychology, aiming to practice in clinical psychology

or in fact your existing other bio, OP,

Polymath, Reads a lot, science fan, student

And whatever you do, don’t use the phrase

Question Details

Empirical research by Zeibura S. Kathau and myself confirms that phrase gets deprecated. 🙂