I think you were lucky they told you anything. On Quora they just say "your answer was deleted for violating Quora policies. Click here to read our policies."
This sort of "tell them nothing" approach seems pervasive in the online world. Blame the lawyers.
Their lawyers must caution them "Don't give any details. That just opens us up to more questions & legal actions." The fact that it's completely self-serving and proves they don't give a shit about you is kinda irrelevant. Who are you, after all? There are millions just like you.
I was a frequent Quora user with a relatively well-regarded reputation.
During an Ask to Answer session a user took offence to being proved wrong about some fact or other and threatened a retribution.
Over next few days emails began arriving in my personal inbox which the User had incorrectly identified as the email of my business clients.
The emails were pure vitriol accusing me of fraud etc telling the "clients" to jettison me.
I immediately contacted Quora as the information he had access to could only have come from an Administrator (which I had previously clashed with on the thread). Quora denied all knowledge but the Administrator refused to engage with me personally.
At that point I realised it just was not worth the exposure.
"Hi,
Can you please delete my account and all data associated with it. I was originally impressed with Quora, but the main issue is that it is hard to navigate and its utility is limited. I do not want my information being passively shared on any service, especially one where I may be looking for answers to confidential questions.
After all, why else would I go to the Internet rather than just asking a friend?"
They deleted my account after about a day. The user experience is as much of a problem for me as the privacy. Navigating that site is probably the most fustrating experience on the web.
Wow. If this had happened a couple years ago, before they made all the anonymous entries truly anonymous, this would have been really ugly.
It's a valuable lesson in "don't keep data you don't need".
EDIT: A little backstory for non-Quorans. Until early 2017, anonymous Quora answers and comments were anonymous to the public but not actually anonymous in the database (they were still "your" entries). In early 2017 they (presciently) made all this content fully anonymous, even in the database.
Wasn't there some sort of issue where they were mining user data without our consent? Many of us were having to send emails directly to Quora support requesting that our accounts be deleted.
The Quora link to more details is a masterpiece of corporate obfuscation. Posing as a FAQ, it presents questions, then proceeds to not answer them (at least, as of a few minutes ago).
Quora has a super-powered anonymity feature designed to be truly private. No court order can get information that doesn't exist.
It was used primarily for harassment. They kept defending it on the grounds of somebody needing information and absolute secrecy, but the instances of that were somewhere between negligible and nonexistent. It also meant that they couldn't be blocked, because there was no account associated with it. Harassers could return with impunity.
People complained for years, and they finally got rid of it. (For questions, which get broad distribution. Anonymous answers are still allowed.)
At the same time they relaxed account requirements, so pseudonymous accounts are allowed. They're so relaxed that there are some abusers, but even the small overhead of creating an account has dramatically reduced the incidence of abuse.
I received the same email, but I deleted it instead of responding. I guess Tom's response is more likely to get the point across to them that they suck. Nothing makes me click away from a page faster than seeing the word "Quora".
On second thought, they probably don't care what anyone thinks of them given the way they so obviously try to suck you in to exploit you.
First they ban accounts and sometimes delete them to make the person disappear without a trace, and secondly they prohibit you from asking why certain people got banned. This censorship prevents people from acknowledging that certain people existed.
Criticising Quora on Quora will get you banned without prior warning, and in some instances have your account deleted without a trace.
And when you're banned or disappeared, nobody is allowed ask why that happened, as those questions get censored.
And just like that, I no longer have a Quora account.
This is a "dark pattern", and it's sleazy any way you slice it. They could have easily fixed it by popping up a dialog when I first sign in that says "Hey, do you want to share the things you read in your feed? Yes/No", and I could select "No" and be on my merry way. Instead, they decided that they would make a decision about my privacy for me, and they've lost me as a user in the process.
I agree with this article 100%. I have posted answers on quora to only have them disappear. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason on posts, moderation, and who sees what answer.
Can they accidentally delete the breadcrumbs of questions I read, which they appear to keep about me, on the way out? Initially I loved Quora and participated, but some magic default setting toggle changed and suddenly I'd get emailed about something I clicked on due to a Google search result which took me to a Quora question or answer - pre-authenticated of course.
Most of that is my fault, but now that info is available someplace forever.
Also Quora forces you to signup even to view all answers/comment. (or you have to do silly url hack, appending ?share=1). Secondly the quality of answers on Stackoverflow network is much better than Quora. Lastly, I have seen some answers deleted by Quora mods for their personal reasons.* There is no way such thing can happen on Stack Overflow.
* this [0] is the question I remember. Directi is an Indian company. And mods who work for Directi deleted the answers which showed Directi in badlight. It doesn't matter whether answers were correct or not, let the downvotes decide them, but this kinda of censorship is not cool.
It's so inconsistent. I was a Quora member for years and wrote a lot of answers as well as participating in a lot of discussions. Despite this I was never asked to confirm my identity!
I deleted my account last year (got cold feet as I was using my real name and picture and people I know IRL had started to stumble across some of my answers) but I'm sure my data is probably involved in this breach somewhow.
Quora gives me a link to "deactivate" my account but wants me to write a mail to privacy@quora.com for "deleting" my account. Others have reported that the requests sent to this email address are not fulfilled, neither are the mails even replied to.
I want to know the names of assholes in charge of this company so that I can avoid ever working with them.
This. It’s a short term strategy that blew up the long term. I submitted a bunch of answers to Quora way back when, but learned to avoid clicking links to the site because of sign in hassle. Which meant I was never on the site, so I stopped writing new answers.
Classic case of a company not understanding their value prop and accidentally destroying it.
I took my estimate from their non-logged-in frontpage which shows the number of followers per topic. It was <100K per topic, with the average, subjective guess, at around 50K per topic. I figured that not everyone would be a sub to each topic and then gave a generous guesstimate at users...
re: your last paragraph, their actions have shown me that they dont give a shit about any user sentiment (unless major backlash, like this issue) and thus, I simply don't trust them with any information/content I produce/consume.
So, I deleted my account because I am so tired of not only companies like Quora, but where this general direction is taking us.
Hell, the NSA is archiving and data-mining every online transaction of everyone online and I think the acquiesence of the populous, even though seemingly small, through the actions of companies like Quora is simply unnacceptable.
Quora and Facebook are tools against freedom, not for it. If you have no safety in your sharing of information, you have no freedom.
I have already requested that Quora delete my account via email (which they did).
I might not represent the majority, I am not sure. But I think that it is wrong to say that users will not punish them.
People are becoming more jaded with each incident (regardless of which company) and becoming less tolerant of these antics. Eventually people will reach their breaking point.
Or it just might be that I am getting old and crotchety. Get off my lawn!
This sort of "tell them nothing" approach seems pervasive in the online world. Blame the lawyers.
Their lawyers must caution them "Don't give any details. That just opens us up to more questions & legal actions." The fact that it's completely self-serving and proves they don't give a shit about you is kinda irrelevant. Who are you, after all? There are millions just like you.
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