What's so bad about Yahoo! Answers?
I have to disagree that it's the worst thing in the world. It has shortcomings for sure. But Yahoo Answers serves the masses, while Quora still serves the niche. Quora has a strong following in Silicon Valley and in general among internet entrepreneurs, software geeks, etc. But that would hardly be 2-5% of the masses. I have to believe that average intellectual level of the community on Quora is pretty high and I would not expect them to use Yahoo Answers. If you somehow bring the 100 million users of Yahoo Answers on Quora then they are likely to create a significant amount of spam on Quora as well. No community moderation can stop that. Turns out that what is "spam" for a few of us, is actually entertainment for millions out there. People actually visit those pages (in millions) and click on ads as well! Yahoo does not pay or promote people to create spam. In fact, a lot of research goes into how to tactfully deal with spam without hurting the community. I love Quora and spend a lot of time on it. However, I find it very hard to get answers to non-tech questions on Quora. I have to turn to Yahoo or Aardvark for them. I believe both Yahoo Answers and Quora can coexist like any other niche and mass products in the world.
Why is Quora more popular than Yahoo Answers? What elements make it the more popular Q&A site?
A couple of years back, early 2015 I guess, I wanted to know about the basics of big data and its importance in industry.I googled “What is Big data”The first link popped up was Wikipedia - I opened in a new tab and set it aside.The second link was from Yahoo answers. I opened and was looking for some useful information.There were answers like:I was confused, irritated and most of the answers didn’t answer the question.The next link which popped was from Quora.I could find answers like this:Answer was by Balaji Viswanathan (பாலாஜி விஸ்வநாதன்) sir. That is the moment I followed him and read his other answers too! And that was the moment i decided not to refer yahoo answers for anything in future.Unlike Yahoo answers, Why was the answer better?It summed up all the information - technical explanation with real life examplesPictures made it easier for me to connect with answerThe credential “Ran a Big data company” made me believe the answer is from someone trustworthy.Upvotes and comments of appreciation from people in related field made me feel secured about the answerComments were healthy and was debating its future application.So, with no further discussions, Quora is always better than Yahoo answers.
Where did my answer go?
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