My Issues With Q And A Websites
I’m beginning to feel like Quora might not be the most reliable source of answers. At least two times now, it relied extensively on experts in the field, to determine whether that career option was ethical or not. If you ask a drug salesman whether selling narcotics was ethical, then of course it is in their vested interest to determine that their career path is ethical, if that helps them sleep at night and put food on the table.
And that’s kind of what is insidious about the platform to me. Basically anyone can present them self as being an expert in their field, without actually being able to verify that that specific information is true. People present Stack Overflow as the answer to that, but anyone who as ever taken one glance at Stacks, knows how mean spirited the moderation community is. I not even sure why a reputable university professor would even permit answers to their quiz / test based on information scored from a Q and A website.
At least in my case, I’m able to self-teach myself by applying actual programming experience in practice. However not everyone is that way, so they need really good information sources.
I’m not even sure if I can trust Quora, knowing that not only can people claim to be anything, on there, but there is not checking to see whether the people that actually put in answers in the website, have a vested interest in the topic or not. Which means, if you wanted to ask about how to run a black market drug operation ( you’ll find a lot of weird areas Cyberpunk fiction will take you ) the answers there are extremely unreliable.
And yet what shows up on Wikipedia is not these issues of reliability, but the fact that this one Palestinian Lady was called a white supremacist by someone on the platform. That is hardly the only issue about Quora. And I expect there will be many more issues that come to light ( or have more attention payed to it ) as time goes on.
We need to stop relying on question and answer websites, as they can completely lead you in completely the wrong direction when self-studying.