My first two days on Quora: scolded and collapsed

Quora calls them policies, but they feel more like rules to me. My first two days on Quora were initially refreshing, different and then frustrating.  I enjoyed searching subjects I like company culture, core values, connecting, influence, and technology.  I jumped right in where I felt I had value to add, just as I do anywhere else.  The difference though is that on the second day it became clear that the administrators had a very distinct view of what those policies entailed.   I was scolded right away by posting a reference to a very relevant blog post I had written. A user had asked what the community thought about using your own influence on social media to drive attention to a clients brand.  That was not good etiquette I guess and I was accused of self-promoting.  Then I added a note and a link to Michael Hyatt’s post exactly on the subject being asked about, should a CEO use Twitter.  Later today I saw that my post had been “collapsed”.  Curiously I went to go see what that meant.  Quora writes that a comment will be collapsed for the following reasons:

There are three main reasons that an answer may be collapsed:

1. It’s been downvoted significantly by users.
2. It’s marked not helpful by users.
3. It’s marked not helpful by Quora Admins (see Why do Quora Admins mark an answer as Not Helpful?).

After adding more detail to my answer and spelling out why I thought it was relevant my CEO twitter answer was un-collapsed and was actually voted up.  To clarify, Michael Hyatts’s link itself stated how-to-convince-your-boss-to-twitter.html. Its relevance seemed pretty obvious to me.

So what is my takeaway?  I am not sold.  It seemed like a great site with lots of valuable content.  I am frustrated though due to the nature and application of so many rules (many unspoken or self discovered rules I would add).  We have enough rules already in the world.  I like the open nature of the web, especially on Twitter and Facebook.  If I wanted to feel shamed for trying to answer questions in class, I would go back to middle school.

I am going to give Quora a few more days.  Based on my two days though, I might be voting myself off the Island and deleting my account.

One last note:  I also sent a question to my friend Chris Skaggs yesterday. A Quora user had asked how best to get their mobile app ideas published if they are not a developer.  I get asked this question all the time.  Chris who works with me at Soma Games and Code-monkeys obliged with a very good straight forward answer.  I checked today and his answer, you guessed it, was “collapsed”.