Ask HN: What is up with Quora?It suggests snuff, torture and unusual punishments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30294665

by unixhero • 4 years ago

3 8 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

ggm2• 4 years ago

I suspect it can't afford to reward editorial roles well enough to clean the slime out quickly.

All public engagement fed media has this risk.

selfhoster112• 4 years ago

I have never seen anything like that on StackOverflow. Quora is simply promoting bad content.

ggm2• 4 years ago

I agree. Maybe thats just a matter of time? They have similar operational models but different kinds of questions lie in each space. I would not expect to be told about cool ways to kill people in a room where syntax issues in python are discussed but I would be totally unsurpised to be told that in a room where kids ask each other which is the worst way to get out of bed in the morning

unixhero2• 4 years ago

It is shell shocking and I don't want anything to do with it. Yet the site keeps suggesting these articles. The content is like high quality curated rotten.com, absolutely terrible.

jfengel2• 4 years ago

Quora's algorithm definitely gets into "moods". Once it gets it into its head that you like something, it'll feed you a lot of that. Some days that mood is completely off base.

It provides tools to nudge the algorithm in a different direction, but it can take a while. And many of them are somewhat hidden, like topic muting.

I'm not sure it would be worth your time to learn it. The site still has valuable content, but it's harder and harder to find. The tools for helping are primitive, and not improving.

For what it's worth I can say that not everyone sees what you see. I have no idea why it thinks you like that. It's a machine learning thing, so they don't know either.

unixhero2• 4 years ago

Great answer. I still don't understand why they chose to keep all of that snuff on the site. It is harrowing.

Ask HN: What is up with Quora?It suggests snuff, torture and unusual punishments

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