The mistakes I made in Quora

http://scobleizer.com/2011/01/31/the-mistakes-i-made-in-quora/

by justnearme • 15 years ago

56 23 15 years ago

Wow, that was surprisingly insightful. I have to admit I didn't expect Scoble to be that self-aware.

tim_iles• 15 years ago

I did. It seemed to me he was trying to emulate Jon Skeet's Stack Overflow reputation (ref: http://scobleizer.com/2011/01/02/crack-for-technical-recruit... ) but looks like he misjudged his effort.

stephen• 15 years ago

Self-aware? It took extremely blunt blog posts from the Quora review blog and TechCrunch for him to notice his behavior.

And then in the very same blog post, he still did his annoying name-dropping thing: "I woke up in Davos, Switzerland", which has no relation to the post other than promoting how cool he is.

coderdude3• 15 years ago

He has displayed some very poignant insight into his own behavior in that particular online community. I was able to take away some good lessons about my own activities elsewhere. It's definitely important to keep your ear to the ground, as he has apparently learned. I don't think I've read a lot of what he's written; An article or two over the last several years, maybe. That said I have an image created in my mind about the kind of person he is (very self-promotional) but this has shown me another side of the guy. Something I can relate to.

Good on him for being humble enough to lay his own flaws out there for everyone to see.

StavrosK3• 15 years ago

Isn't the TL;DR here "I was basically being a Karma whore"? It sounds like he was mostly trying to get upvotes rather than answer the questions...

coderdude3• 15 years ago

That wasn't my take-away. He answers a ton of questions and made a conscious effort to maximize his return on that work (in this case, karma). He knew how to get what he wanted, but in order to get what he wanted he still had to be helpful in the process. If he wasn't being helpful then he wouldn't have gotten the votes in the first place.

If he actually wasn't being helpful but yet still received a lot of votes then that is a flaw in the community's voting habits. For example, people automatically up-voting him because of who he is after seeing other people do that countless times "so he must be insightful, right?" The guy knows how that place works so it seems logical that he might make the most out his time spent on there. There are power players in every community -- even this one -- who can relate to Scoble in this regard.

His problem was that he was playing too hard IMO. This ticked a lot of people off. Now, he does mention that some of his practices were annoying to other community members. That was also his flaw.

sushrutbidwai• 15 years ago

These are the self-ware posts by scoble which have made his respected in tech/startup circles.

Perhaps this clarifying post will lead to better discussions on quora. Any new service, when explodes, some one out there misses crucial point of using the service. But in the long run those mistakes become new yardstick to rate content and hence leads to better discussions.

So Scoble - thanks again!

davidu• 15 years ago

Damn, 400 answers on Quora... no wonder why Scoble is so passionate about it. Scoble is a content creation machine, and unlike most answer sites and other bloggers, his content is high-signal.

atgm• 15 years ago

I've had his problem before -- being completely addicted to a service or forum and posting constantly just because I'm always there and am so enthusiastic about it. It's really hard to spot in yourself and deal with when you're just... so enthusiastic!

erikstarck• 15 years ago

The interesting thing here, I think, is how obvious it is that it's the community and the rules of the community that shapes a service like Quora, not the feature set or the web design or the copy used etc.

Not that this is very surprising, it's just a reminder to not just look at the feature list of your startup but also its.... well, soul.

Hacker News is itself an example of this.

andymatic2• 15 years ago

It's the people not the software? >shudders< ;)

jdp23• 15 years ago

It's the people and the software.

Great points by Erik. I quoted this exchange at http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2374&cpage=1#comment-...

josefresco• 15 years ago

I think it's hilarious how one person ... one registered user of a web startup can completely derail all positive discussion about the service and spawn so many blog posts and news articles.

This strikes me as one of those "lord of the flies" moments where we all need to stop and ask what we're all doing here exactly.

andymatic2• 15 years ago

I'm just glad we didn't kill Piggy.

asanwal2• 15 years ago

Hate to sound negative (and prob will get downvoted), but why is this news at all?

uptown• 15 years ago

I know your question was rhetorical, but I'll give an answer anyway. Because unfortunately (in my opinion) news has become as much about whos delivering the information as what's being said. And I use the word "said" because many times whats written or spoken isn't even what I'd call reporting. Take Wikileaks for example ... much of the main stream media reporting on Wikileaks has placed as much prominence (or more) on Julian Assange as they have on the trove of information thats been exposed. Cable-"news" has built brands around their personalities that pass off editorializing as reporting. This has resulted in viewer loyalty to the point where many of their viewers threaten to go elsewhere if their favorite newsreader isn't retained. This "story" has all the ingredients to fit into that model ... two prominent internet personalities (Arrington & Scoble) without enough followers, fans and haters to ensure that there'll be people on either side to fuel the fire using their platforms to promote their opinions about stuff.

Is it news? I guess about as much as what you see presented as news elsewhere.

asanwal2• 15 years ago

Thanks for the thoughtful response. And I tend to agree. In the case of Wikileaks, the guy did something substantive at least (whether you agree or disagree with it) so I can understand the fascination with the man behind the story as his motivations, methods, etc are potentially interesting.

In this case, this whole thing appears void of any real "substance" which I guess is what led to the question.

acconrad• 15 years ago

In truth it shouldn't be news, because it is simply one man's (one user's) opinion. The reality is that Scoble is a tour de force of the tech world: the man has a power with his words to change the course of how startups can gain (or lose) fame/funding/etc. In the case of Quora, they have the accolades to withstand the storm a bit better than most startups.

I think the message here is that even a prominent tech figure can be quelled if he breaks the rules. I think an underlying message here is that the power of the people still rules supreme - what this community can take away from this exchange in Scoble v Quora is that the power of the people still win, so if you can build a compelling piece of software that appeases your customers, even if the critics don't like your product, you can basically give them the finger and tell them "xx customers couldn't disagree more!"

Remember that he may be a juggernaut, but the bigger they are the harder they fall, and to not let one man's negative comments on what you work on deter you from your course.

joshu• 15 years ago

There is something wrong with him. Slight case of narcissistic personality disorder?

jimboyoungblood• 15 years ago

If so, I'd hate to see what a severe case looks like.

The mistakes I made in Quora

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