Ask HN: Do you use Quora?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754666

by goronbjorn • 14 years ago

12 7 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Do you use Quora? If so, how and for what purposes?

imechura• 14 years ago

I was pretty happy with Quora as a source of knowledge until about a month or so ago.

When I was using it, I was getting timely, interesting emails on a weekly basis about startup companies and silicon valley inside information. After receiving an email with an interesting topic I would spend about 45 minutes browsing similar topics that interested me. To sum it up I found Quora to be a very informative source of entertainment.

Now, over the last month or two the emails I've been getting have been ridiculous topics more fitting for entertainment weekly than YCombinator.

On one hand I hope it returns to the level that it was in the past. On the other hand there may not be a large enough user base with my requirements for the owners to create a viable business so I would be understanding if my needs where disregarded in a pivot.

lsiebert• 14 years ago

Nope. But I did just start on Askolo.com

kpennell• 14 years ago

Yes, I love it.

skrish• 14 years ago

I do use it to find relevant information for running a startup. In our case I find a wealth of information on running a startup in US, convertible notes & various other useful details which I find is hard to get expert advice on elsewhere.

Having said that I sometimes find it a distraction as there is plenty of 'curious' stuff going on that could become a time sink. So I stay away from that on most days. :)

rdl• 14 years ago

I use Quora a fair bit, but it has been overrun in the past several months with worthless (negative value, really) survey questions and reddit style memes.

It is great for startup questions (financing/vc things), but otherwise isn't that compelling.

___Calv_Dee___• 14 years ago

In addition to Quora's main features I use the custom boards to create various "Buckets" so that as I discover content, I can sort it based on what I'd like to use it for. As an example - I have a "Learning Bucket" and a "Stuff Bucket". If I come across some content (article, online PDF, blog post, ...) that will contribute to my knowledge I add it to my Learning Bucket board in case I'd like to read it later or have a quick reference to it. If I come across content I simply find interesting and may want to reference or check out again I add it to my Stuff Bucket board. Quora provides a really clean interface to organize your content and I highly recommend trying it out if not solely for this purpose!

Schwolop• 14 years ago

Yep, it's my main procrastination tool. I like procrastinating in a way where I can at least post hoc justify that it wasn't a complete waste of time. On Quora I do regularly learn new stuff, some of which has even been useful to my life, rather than just trivia.

I've also come around to the boards feature. I originally hated the whole concept because it seemed like noise in what was a pretty good source of signal, but eventually it settled down a bit more. Most people now seem to use them the way I do, just as a place to dump interesting content or things I want to remember later, rather than a way to spam one's followers with uselessness.

Ask HN: Do you use Quora?

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