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My thoughts on the success of Quora are consistent with that of Joel Spolsky's take on cultural anthropology: http://vimeo.com/37309773

Watch from 9:30 on. "The idea of Stack Overflow is to attract anyone who is an expert programmer and repel anyone who's not"

My prediction - Google/Facebook (someone in that arena) will buy Quora.

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Isn't Stack Overflow the opposite of that though?

That's my point. Sorry I was actually making two distinct points that probably got intertwined. One - that Quora will not succeed like SO has. Two - Someone will buy Quora. Reason? Because, Silicon Valley.

That's the problem with gamifying something. Eventually you'll get people who are only there for karma. The other day I found an incorrect answer that was chosen, but directly below it was the correct answer. The kicker? The OP commented on the correct answer saying that his was correct but the guy other guy had less karma than him and "needed it". WTF.

These days, you really have to take Stack Overflow answers with a grain of salt.

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