Comment by CM30 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CM30 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Yeah, this is the main problem I have with Quora. You go to a thread to look for answers to a question, then find the platform has merged in a bunch of answers to related questions alongside the ones I'm actually there to read.

For example, I found this random question just now:

https://www.quora.com/How-does-blockchain-technology-work-11

About half the answers there are actually to that question. The rest are to questions that are about the same thing but with different wording:

* 'How does block chain technology work?' * 'How blockchain technology works?' * etc

or to related but not quite identical ones:

* 'What is blockchain technology and how does it work?' * 'What is blockchain technology, could you explain it in an easy way?' * 'What is a blockchain?'

So you'll see a lot of answers... which may or may not actually be for the question you were interested in. Or which may explain it in a weird way, since the actual question they answered was worded very differently.

At least with StackOverflow you know that the answers are all related to the same question.

>At least with StackOverflow you know that the answers are all related to the same question.

I don't know, most StackOverflow answers I run into are "closed as duplicate of <not my question>" or "closed as duplicate of <how would I have solved my problem 8 years ago with only the tools available then>"

Or gods forbid, someone had a slightly open ended question.

Slightly open-ended doesn't seem to be a problem for me on SO. Where I've really had a problem is the admins not reading the question properly then closing it as already answered elsewhere. I find that screeching like a banshee gets it apologetically reopened. Bit frustrating but a flawed SO is better than no SO at all.

I really fail to understand how a company can consciously guide itself to degrade so badly. Like these were actual decisions of meetings and the results of a ton of work of teams to implement. And it destroyed the site.

Product of too much VC, probably.

Product of middle managers, the cause of nearly all corporate problems.

Middle managers pursue the CEO's vision. They aren't steering the ship.

That's your theory, anyway.

Either the CEO sees what’s going on and is fine with it mean it is their vision, they are putting their feet up and don’t care, or they are not fine with it and have no control over the company.

Seems bad any way you look at it.

> they are not fine with it and have no control over the company

something something "all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way"

In some places, the "vision" is sufficiently vague that all sorts of dumb decisions can be justified by it.

Or the CEO is so stupid that he only listens to his direct reports, who all tell him everything is under control. And when they tell him not to "micromanage" he listens and backs off.

You can't make any universal statements about this.

i.e. "bad" CEO. I don't really think the reason matter.

Can't see a something like "show answers to related questions directly under a single answer to the intended question" being a middle-manager decision.

You can't? How do you think it happens in a fairly large company, then?

More likely, it's a product of not making money and of trying to find a way to make money and not go out of business.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com