I’ve been contemplating this for awhile and I think it’s time to act on those contemplations.
Today I put a question out on Quora and in less then 10 minutes I received 3 quality answers one of which needed several self help educational videos attached.
For those who do not know quora is a platform where you ask questions and people answer them.
I figured why stay here wow forums and annoy people I barely have anything in common with and try to be relevant to have my questions answered.
You all are fun but I am going to experiment with it
Your experience with forums is quite different than mine. I’ve been using “forums” since the late eighties or early nineties, and I have always used them as a place to socialize, debate, and wax philosophical about things. I’ve never really posed a question and then waited for the answer to appear - unless it was like a tech support issue or something.
To me, posting a general question to forums is of course frustrating and unproductive, because:
It’s inherently a terribly inefficient way to get an answer. It takes hundreds of times longer than seeking the answer yourself. The correct answer may never come. If it’s fact you are after, seek the fact somewhere else besides a forum.
The answers are subject to public opinion and bias, which often varies from the actual truth or the correct answer. Just because some person pops up and guarantees it is the correct answer doesn’t make it so, even if they have public support. You need to verify the fact for yourself anyway to be sure it’s correct - skipping this step is how misinformation spreads. Since you logically need to verify a response to ensure validity, just cut out the middle-man and seek the answer yourself from the get-go.
The answers are often subjective and should be answered by the individual themselves (“which class is more fun?” is equal to “is chocolate better than vanilla?”) If you get fifty responses, you might get fifty different answers, each one insistent on why they are correct. Each one actually being correct.
Sure, asking questions on forums certainly has its place, especially if what you are after is public opinion or conjecture, or if you just like to discuss and debate things. But of course you’re dissatisfied with the WoW forum response time and accuracy to questions; it’s an “ancient” method of acquiring answers and nearly useless when it comes to acquiring facts.
In 40 years we have come a long, long way, and there are just far better ways to query things these days. There have been better ways for more than twenty-five years, actually.
TL;DR - If you are after an existing fact, forums are a horrible way to go about retrieving that fact. Sure, Quora is better. A Google search is even better than that, though. If, however, you are after socializing, theorizing, philosophizing, debating or the like, then forums are a wonderful place to do so.
I’ve only meaningfully engaged with forums since about 2000 onward, but my experience is pretty similar.
The one exception I’d note is that it can be ok to ask questions in communities centered around hobbies, but when posting questions it is absolutely critical that one does a bit of their own homework first, because chances are your specific question has been asked and answered 50 times before. It may also turn out that the questions you initially intended to ask weren’t the right ones to ask — most often, why (“why do you want to achieve this result”) — which is important because so many answers depend entirely on the nuances of the question.
As for Quora… OP, it’s not the worst thing out there, but I’d strongly recommend validating any answers you receive yourself, because those answering there have a strong tendency to be “confidently incorrect” types who don’t actually know much about the subject in question, but have a good enough grip on language and charisma to make it seem like they do.
There is no perfect place on the Internet to go for all answers.
If you want answers to questions that are rooted in fact, and that fact is available to you, then it’s best to get the answer yourself. This way, you’ve automatically verified that it’s correct as long as you do proper research. (That might sound complicated, but “proper research” might only amount to source-checking an article.) You’ve also then done it as quickly as possible; you don’t need to wait for someone else to give you the answer.
If you want public opinion, which may vary, then you can ask anywhere. Forums are fine. Quora is fine. Quora is probably faster than forums. Forums are probably more detailed than Quora.
I’d just mention this about opinion: Opinions on subjective things are always correct. Opinions on factual matters that don’t match the fact are always wrong. That’s a really fickle element to include in one’s search for an answer. Personally, I like to avoid opinion and find truth instead.
If you give me an example of the type of question you would be asking, I could offer options on where the best places are to find the answers. But, without knowing what it is you’ll be asking, I can’t really offer an opinion on whether or not Quora is the “best” place to get the answer.
I am sick of both Facebook and Twitter. I have tried Quora and I like it, but it doesn’t seem to have a lot of foot traffic. Can anyone recommend any other Social Media platforms?
Everytime I’ve asked a question it wasn’t asked nor answered yet or I needed more clarification. Searching past posts before posting. Its like my grandpa who used to put his bird on my head. Even though I didn’t want to do it I still sat there and let the bird dig its sharp claws into my adolescent skull. But I see where you are coming from. I sometimes can choose what to validate if it stands out among the numbers. If 10 replies are fraudulent I summon together their key points and wording and make my conclusion.
Ok I should stop typing…
Im not a writer…
@pythagorus
Im not that person… seeking friends or companion… (I used to be) Nowadays sometimes I just get the urge to throw thoughts at a human to see how they react. Is that weird? So I don’t think Facebook and Twitter are for me . You need a face and followers for that. I just want to talk. Maybe you could try something like O-megle but that might not be you either
If you just want to talk, forums are the place (unless you want to move to something voice-based, like Discord.) You say you’re not a writer but you are writing more than a paragraph here, and you are coming across far better than someone who writes an entire response as ‘k’ or abbreviates every word.
My point is that you write well. Maybe you should try writing. If you like to talk, you can write something out and then offer it up to the public.
Well, Facebook and Twitter “aren’t for me” either, I suppose, though I do use both. I use them as tools to retrieve information and keep up with things out there in the world that I like.
In other words, I’ll go to Facebook to hear a new mix some DJ I like posted there. I’ll go to see how my Aunt’s trip to Las Vegas was. I’ll go to see what my WoW friends have posted lately. I’ll use Twitter for much the same.
What I won’t do is post every damned move I make, all of my meals, where I am walking, how my health is, how upset I am that my hair is greying, how much I love the new soap I bought, etc., etc., ad nauseum. I’m older than that wave and I never cared to surf it.
Nah, not at all.
For that kind of thing, Quora is quicker but more shallow (you get the yes/no and a sentence or two from people.) The forums are deeper but will take longer to explore the topic (you’ll get hundreds of lines from people but you might actually not even get a clear yes/no.)