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Comment by tacker2000 | Hacker News Reader

tacker2000

Please dont post quora links. Whilst the questions and answers might be interesting, the whole site its just a minefield of ads, SEO spam, forced logins, etc…

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The complete downfall of quora is surprising tbh.

Trying to cash out before they reached critical point? At one point about a decade ago through my spotty memory they are pretty on par with reddit in terms of adoption and reputation.

To me it became unbearable after it became flooded with people trying to add content without bringing any actual insight. They'd largely reuse existing materials or top google/wikipedia results and used certain style that became annoying to me (I wonder if others also started noticing the 'quora-style' answers)

I feel like all the good people disbanded as that happened. I noticed answers became increasingly anecdotes that looked like a blog post in the style: “10 years ago I was working with my father, when I noticed…”. It’s been years I simply ignore Quora when it shows up in a search cause I k ow it will be the same generic garbage as those SEO websites.

I remember asking for the scientific basis for the EPA's recommendations on UV exposure. I had this idea an actual scientist or someone who's done relevant research might answer. All I got were spun versions of the citeless blurb on the EPA's website. That was when I knew Quora was dead.

(kind of an aside after this point)

Meanwhile, ChatGPT (via Phind) just keeps giving me answers on the efficacy of sunscreen at blocking UV light. Nothing on what research went into deciding how much UV is too much. I want to know what actually makes UV 11 or UV 5, or why UV 2 is considered safe. It's the first time it's been 100% useless. I can't seem to get it to stick to the actual question no matter how I phrase it.

Maybe it's one of those ass-pull recommendations where no one really knows. I know people who sunscreen religiously and still got skin cancer, and people who don't get much sun who got it.

Thats a great question because recently I searched similar things when trying to learn about the risk of UV with kids. All sources basically concludes any direct exposure to the sun is bad for you (not just kids) because UV is inherently harmful and vitamin D can be gotten other ways.

Either this is overstated or everyone is behaving very recklessly. Maybe a mix of both. But more details on these levels would be good. I also wonder if they assume direct sunlight or if actual cloudiness is baked into the daily index values.

Quora has fulfilled its purpose of generating training data for large language models, by answering the majority of questions people have ever thought to search for on the premise of "I wonder if anyone's asked this question before." Now that ChatGPT has read all the answers, Quora can fade into the sunset while ChatGPT regurgitates its answers with precision as part of an ad-free conversation.

Seems like only a matter of time before LLM-powered search is also injecting ads. "Ancient Romans had a difficult life with a variety of unpleasant jobs. But after work, they liked to kick back and enjoy all-new garum-flavored Doritos!"

which is a bit sad since the majority of answers on Quora are worse than useless…

Are you sure Quora's purpose is to create large language models?

Yes

> At one point about a decade ago through my spotty memory they are pretty on par with reddit in terms of adoption and reputation

Considering Google Trends for "quora" vs "reddit", it was never even close, generally. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2008-04-18%202...

It's terribly sad that whoever wrote these posts stopped a decade ago, but at least the links are still active - always relevant when someone complains about quora:

https://jesuschristsiliconvalley-blog.tumblr.com/post/489620...

I'm finding that in the past couple of years, more of my google searches are pointing me to quora (but also to reddit, so some swings and roundabouts there). I don't know if they're getting qualitatively better, or just more adept at SEO.

Even with good adblockers in place, the bait-and-switch just after landing is hugely frustrating (if you want to read more, you must sign up, etc).

If the content is interesting, I think it's worth posting. If people think the ads and dark patterns make it not worthwhile, they should not upvote the post, and just let it sink down off the front page.

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