What is Quora? The question portal, explained.

The question-and-answer network Quora began operating in 2010. Quora allows users to ask and answer questions, and each question is assigned to a specific a category. Users can proclaim them­selves as experts in certain cat­e­gories. The questions and answers posted on Quora can be rated neg­a­tive­ly or pos­i­tive­ly by users. As a result, well-rated, helpful, Q-and-A threads are high­light­ed and appear more fre­quent­ly in users feeds. The comment function allows users to par­tic­i­pate or discuss the topic of the post. In addition, Quora also provides a change feature that allows users to edit and improve foreign language questions and answers.

As a concept, Quora lies somewhere between a social network, like Facebook, and a knowledge forum like Mind the Book, or Yahoo! Answers. Quora’s homepage feed is rem­i­nis­cent of Facebook’s timeline and allows visitors to use the site seam­less­ly with unlimited scrolling. The feed is a mix of active threads, unan­swered questions that match your selected cat­e­gories, and sug­ges­tions on how users can complete their profile. If you want to con­tribute, you can do so without having to leave the feed. This results in Quora having a fast, dynamic user ex­pe­ri­ence.

In principle, Quora needs a con­tin­u­ous feed of users that are experts or educated people with different areas of expertise to comment on a range of current questions. However, those who are just getting started on Quora are likely to be con­front­ed with a jumble of trivial, often confused questions. The goal of creating a com­pre­hen­sive database of user content that can compete with Wikipedia seems like a par­tic­u­lar­ly lofty goal. In­ter­na­tion­al reach is not strong enough and there are not enough users worldwide to turn this into a reality.

The potential, though, is certainly there: after all, the platform is easy to use and they would be able to achieve a lot with a large, capable community. The direct exchange of knowledge can be fun, thanks to the suc­cess­ful feedback mechanism of the platform. The English-language Quora website is a thriving bank of knowledge that attracts large investors and prominent supports – e.g. Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales. Many users also use Quora for the en­ter­tain­ment aspect, clicking for hours through in­ter­est­ing feeds.

As seen in the above screen­shot, Quora suggests threads that match the interests “music” and “English (language)”. In these threads, you can rate responses pos­i­tive­ly or neg­a­tive­ly and you can “follow” users. You can also use the comment function to con­tribute to a dis­cus­sion if you don’t feel like posting your own answer to the question. For example, the questions in this screen­shot cannot be answered un­am­bigu­ous­ly. Does Quora cultivate knowledge or opinions? That depends on the question.

Once you have asked a question, you can alert other users to it. . Quora suggests users who have already answered questions in this area, and with one click, they will be informed about your question and hopefully want to answer it. This is a quick, easy way to highlight the best users. In addition, as someone asking a question, you get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to actively promote your content instead of just waiting for feedback.

Quora also lets you edit other users’ questions and suggest changes by clicking on the edit button (an icon with three dots). This is par­tic­u­lar­ly useful if you find the question in­ter­est­ing in itself but find a mistake with the grammar, spelling, or wording. Your questions can also be answered by others. Quora expect openness to sug­ges­tions for im­prove­ment as it improves the overall quality of the portal.

This could be the first step in es­tab­lish­ing yourself as a Star Wars expert on Quora. You can use the small tool on the right to start a con­ver­sa­tion, making other users aware of your questions.

In addition, you can change your personal settings. In the previous screen­shot, you can see that a call has been initiated. In our example, we want to answer questions about music culture in our next step. The prac­ti­cal­ly in­te­grat­ed social media helps make the account more well-known. Quora, like Twitter uses the “followers principle” to motivate and highlight the best authors. If your content (par­tic­u­lar­ly your answers) is high-quality, your follower numbers should increase quickly. Gaining followers and receiving positive ratings helps you establish yourself as an expert on certain topics – your personal profile becomes more and more like a blog!

The question catalog arranges posts according to the thread’s pop­u­lar­i­ty and relevance. Scrolling through the topic page is both in­for­ma­tive and en­ter­tain­ing, and is almost rem­i­nis­cent of Reddit.

Quality is of the utmost im­por­tance to Quora. In order for the platform to run properly, es­pe­cial­ly in a place where opinions and knowledge can sometimes be con­tro­ver­sial, people need to be re­spect­ful. Quora often has to deal with hate speech, shit­storms and other kinds of poisonous com­mu­ni­ca­tion that can sometimes arise on social media platforms. Personal attacks are monitored and deleted as necessary. Answering a question like “Is it ok just to go to church at Christmas?” with an answer like “Religion is bad and god is a lie” violates the guide­lines because it is dis­re­spect­ful to the ques­tion­er. Following the idea of “Be Nice, Be Re­spect­ful”, Quora demands a polite tone that should not frighten away new users. Racist, sexist and other dis­crim­i­na­to­ry content is pro­hib­it­ed, as is the use of offensive language. Vi­o­la­tions of these rules lead to content being deleted and users being banned. Quora seems to place great emphasis on meeting this high standard.

There is also an in-house Quora app available for Android and iOS free of charge. The app has all the functions of the website, but focuses more on the scrolling feed. Pri­or­i­tiz­ing on ease of use is the norm for mobile apps. However, questions tend to get more com­pre­hen­sive answers on PCs. The app is par­tic­u­lar­ly useful for those who want to use Quora on the go – if they want to stay up-to-date and receive alerts on chosen questions and answers.

From a technical per­spec­tive, the Quora app is still expanding. Many Android users complain about long loading times and regular crashing. iOS users report that the app consumes too much battery power. In our test, the Quora app worked smoothly, with no no­tice­ably long loading times.