Okay, it's been a forever since I've posted anything pretty much anywhere, the infinite void of the internet holds no interest for me to have my words heard or read any more, but I felt I needed to post this because it's subject is pissing me off...
Or at the very least, I think it's pissing me off, I may yet find it's actually not, and I'm just venting over nothing.
So, here's the schtick, I like hanging about on Quora, for a while I even thought I 'liked' answering questions there, I felt as though I was helping spread a little learning, some positive (I hope...) opinions and making things better.
This feeling has died now and I'm left feeling confused and slightly angry at the Quora site.
As I see it, at the very heart of Quora is the concept of a question & an answer, perhaps not always a good or correct answer, but an answer, inquiry met with feedback, an honest two-way interaction of inquisitive minds and those with the information to feed forward.
But now, I'm jaded, I see a website filled with questions which with even a tiny amount of research are easily answered elsewhere, questions phrased and clearly intoned to be aggravating or 'trolling' and questions which seem to fill no other role than an abuse of the fact that asking questions is rewarded with a share of the site profits (no doubt because of the increase in ad revenue those same questions draw into the site)
Cash for Shit, bring out your shit!
If I might stick with the last point, it seems ass-backwards that a really shit question is rewarded, but a superb, well written and meticulously explained answer yields it's progenitor no benefit.Someone asking "is the outcome of 2+2 different on Tuesdays" would likely get a few hundred views, maybe even some earnest answers, and probably a few 'triggered' answers too...
But that question, regardless of how inane it may be, will earn the asker some cash. The asker can then go on to ask the exact same question but rephrased replacing "Tuesdays" with Monday, or June, or 2006... each time they do, being rewarded for their effort and clogging up the site with ever more redundant and objectively poor content.
But, hypothetically; if a theoretical physicist, one whom also has a deep and well-educated grasp of quantum theory and chaos theory (or whatever) were to drop by and give a lengthy and detailed 'actual' answer explaining how even basic mathematics is affected by some hitherto unknown esoteric scientific theorem.
That answer, the sum of their extensive learning, experience, and the time they'd given to put together the answer. Is somehow less valuable?
Fucking what?
And so, I come to realise that once again, idiocy, banality and feigned ignorance are being rewarded while talent, ability and a willingness to help are simply ignored, or even worse - are abused.
Sigh.
I've no doubt I'll continue to read, and even post on Quora, but I do so feeling somewhat ashamed that I cannot find a better use of my time and a little depressed that I continue to sink in an intellectual mire of self-depreciation.Happy Christmas folks.
