This week, as part of my Social Media & Digital Culture class, I looked at Quora, located at www.quora.com (Links to an external site.). The purpose of Quora is, simply put, for people with answers to link up with those who have questions. However, Quora goes so much beyond the simple. I found a plethora of articles relevant to my interests, both personal and professional, from poetry and novel writing to art and education. How have I not heard of this before? As a seeker of knowledge, why is this new to me? How is Twitter bigger than this site? As I went in search of answers, pun intended, something occurred to me. Twitter is a no holds barred, raucous, sounds like incoherent ramblings sometimes, short blip of a conversation. Quora is a place to ask and answer questions - Easy questions, such as "What fruit starts with the letter 'n?'" and more complex questions "Why is reading so important? or Why do we need quantum mechanics?"
Another aspect of Quora I find intriguing is the algorithm it seems to use to determine what questions you might find interesting to answer, and ones you might find intriguing to read. After a week, I seemed to be relegated to college and art questions. I then updated my topics and was greeted with a plethora of enticing questions to read and answer. The more subjects you list, the more varied topics for questions you are exposed to; however, Quora pays attention to the questions you seem to like to answer as well. You can "pass" on answering questions and get more questions to read or answer. It seems to be a never ending process, but one that is fascinating to take part in. After vetting more than five dozen answers to questions I researched the answers for, I discovered most of the answers for concrete subjects were accurate. There was some conversations and debates for more subjective answers to questions, especially in the art section; which is as it should be. On the whole, Quora is worth a look and worth returning to as it is much more entertaining than Wikipedia. Favorite question I've read on Quora so far (and only tabletop RPG participants will get this, but it is very relevant to another class I am taking) "How do I, as a DM, deal with a pair of Chaotic Stupid and Stupid Neutral alignment characters?" If you play RPG's and have ever played D&D, you will get this and it is amazing that there are two dozen answers to such a niche question and there are almost a thousand views of the answers. Pro's and Con's: Pro: There are so many different articles from many professionals and everyday people to read and process. The subjects seem to be endless and varied. Lurking is easy as is answering questions in an almost anonymous manner. Con: There are so many different articles - I got lost in the rabbit hole for hours. There does seem to be a group of posters and question answer gurus that I see frequently, there may be something strange here about this, but maybe not.
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Kait E CottengimA wandering leaf, teacher, lifelong book addict, ofttimes artist/writer, & eclectic spiritual explorer. ArchivesCategories |