What the hell is it with Quora ?

As in, "the hell are these people thinking ?"

I answer question on Quora on a regular-ish basis depending on time and interest. I try to give detailed but (unlike certain blog posts) not overly-long answers, and I restrict myself to subjects I'm at least vaguely qualified to tackle. Of the 69 answers I've given so far, only two have upvotes in the double figures. That's annoying, but I'm fine with that. That's just the regular, "people are ungrateful dicks" principle.

What I'm not so fine with is everything else. Like how Quora will leave me alone if I stop answering questions, but as soon as I dare answer something, for a solid week or more I'm inundated with a torrent of assorted nonsense. Partly this is from Quora itself : apparently my answer to an astronomy question needs a different qualification than calling myself an astronomer. Does Quora helpfully suggest what would be better ? No, it just says that it needs to be something else for a whole bunch of answers. Perhaps if I say "I love wearing pink frilly hats" as my qualification for "what is dark matter ?" people will finally start taking me seriously.

Then there's Quora's tendency to tell me that Joe Bloggs has requested my answer to a question. I seriously doubt that Joe Bloggs would do that, because he's never interacted with me before. I have 16 followers, but apparently there are teeming hordes just waiting to pester me the moment I deign to answer a question. That's barely more likely than the really quite astonishing number of hot Russian singles just desperate to meet me whenever I turn my adblocker off. What an astonishing coincidence.

To add insult to injury, Quora makes it completely unclear as to when and why certain questions get outrageous numbers of views while others lurk suspiciously in the depths. Sometimes I'm recommended questions within moments of their appearance whereas often they were asked months ago and the questioner has long since moved on to pastures new. And best not say anything about the dubious, "more followers = more upvotes = more authority" mentality of the site, as though truth could be measured like that. Too often does that result in gibberish being treated as gospel.

Worst of all, though, are the questions themselves. They say there are no stupid questions, but they haven't met Quora users. Look, I get that the people most in need of education are by definition the hardest to educate, but come on. It's not only that a huge fraction of questions could be given a highly competent answer from a two second Google search (did they even try ? I doubt it), it's that a lot of them have worked very, very hard at being stupid. Sometimes they confusingly lack context : "how must white cosmology be considered now ?" The heck is "white cosmology ?" Is that a racial thing or are you talking about noted cosmologist Simon White ? "Where can I see the Milky Way from Malaysia ?". I dunno, did you try looking UP, maybe, or are you asking about the darkest location ? "What are some secrets of astronomy ?" If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret anymore, now would it ?

Oh, but it gets worse. "Where can you see stars in Flagstaff ?" Okay, look, Malaysia is quite big, but Flagstaff is titchy. I've been there. You can see the stars from pretty much anywhere, it's got a frickin' observatory with an excellent public outreach department, the hell are you doing asking this shit on the web ? Just go for a goddamn walk. "Which are the most interesting facts about astronomers, and why is that ?" I dunno, our heights, breast size, tendency to procrastinate, our flair for acerbic sarcasm ? Depends what you find interesting, I guess. And perhaps best of all : "How many hot dogs (just pick a specific brand) would it take to form a star if an arbitrary amount suddenly popped into existence in space?"

AAAARGH.

These people make no sense. There's also a peculiar form of Quora-speak in how questions are phrased, especially a tendency to confuse "how" and "why", which is fine in everyday speech but highly misleading in text. At the same time, if anyone says, "why do scientists believe..." then they get an earful of undeserved crap about scientists not "believing" anything, as though "believe" wasn't being used in its perfectly ordinary capacity as a synonym for "think".

It's not as though there aren't some great questions and fantastic answers that would be difficult to find on the web. There are plenty of those. But there's even more absolute garbage, both on the part of the site and its users. It's a strange, strange place indeed.

This rant has accomplished nothing at all except for its intended purpose of making me feel slightly better.