At its best, Quora can be an interesting window into parts of the world you might have little to no direct experience with. Some of the most highly-voted answers are from prisoners, police officers, actors, CEOs, and other people you might not interact with day-to-day, and I’ve found those answers to be both entertaining and useful for enriching my model of the world.
I also occasionally use Quora as a way to test exposition strategies. The standard for what constitutes an accessible explanation (as measured by number of votes) is relatively high, and I like the challenge of trying to explain mathematics on Quora in as accessible a way as I can. Feedback on my attempts to do this is relatively fast and has informed how I explain mathematics in general.
Most of the time, though, I find Quora a waste of time. I have not found a way to effectively filter its feed so that I get mostly high-quality content. It seems like there is relatively little effort made to quality control questions (as opposed to answers).
At its best, Quora can be an interesting window into parts of the world you might have little to no direct experience with. Some of the most highly-voted answers are from prisoners, police officers, actors, CEOs, and other people you might not interact with day-to-day, and I’ve found those answers to be both entertaining and useful for enriching my model of the world.
I also occasionally use Quora as a way to test exposition strategies. The standard for what constitutes an accessible explanation (as measured by number of votes) is relatively high, and I like the challenge of trying to explain mathematics on Quora in as accessible a way as I can. Feedback on my attempts to do this is relatively fast and has informed how I explain mathematics in general.
Most of the time, though, I find Quora a waste of time. I have not found a way to effectively filter its feed so that I get mostly high-quality content. It seems like there is relatively little effort made to quality control questions (as opposed to answers).