# 1 Style and format

* 1.1 Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia

# 2 Content

* 2.1 Wikipedia is not a dictionary
* 2.2 Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought
* 2.3 Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion
* 2.4 Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files
* 2.5 Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social network, or memorial site
* 2.6 Wikipedia is not a directory
* 2.7 Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal
* 2.8 Wikipedia is not a crystal ball
* 2.9 Wikipedia is not a newspaper
* 2.10 Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
* 2.11 Wikipedia is not censored

# 3 Community

* 3.1 Wikipedia is not a democracy
* 3.2 Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy
* 3.3 Wikipedia is not a battleground
* 3.4 Wikipedia is not an anarchy
* 3.5 Wikipedia is not compulsory

Quora’s strengths as a social media platform and Q&A site are evident: it looks sharp and stylish, seems to be well thought out, and has followed the Facebook-Twitter model of starting with a core group of likeminded users before gradually expanding its user base. While it is very far from being a household word, it is often enough compared to those two social media juggernauts, and in fact has early Facebook employees on board. But more and more it is being compared to Wikipedia, which answers the question (so to speak) about why I’ve become so fascinated by it.

This kind of activity doesn’t have a place in Wikipedia, and until recently there wasn’t a generalist, participative website that attracted this kind of social bubbling and intermingling of ideas. The closest thing might have been the Edge website (which incidentally also has a question center), but that is an exclusive club, not something anybody can join.

Why is Quora suddenly becoming a focal point for new insights into anything and everything? Well, one of the key ways knowledge actually grows is through the questions we ask. My hunch is that the kind of question-answer dynamic that Quora offers is what makes it so enthralling to us explorers. By contrast to Wikipedia, Quora is not past-bound. It is future-oriented. With questions you can throw one hypothesis or another out there, and see if it will withstand the test of examination by other minds. On Quora we are free to use our imagination to send dozens of little probes out into what might be.

As Quora’s user and topic-base expands, TQR should certainly incorporate this take on coverage if it is to best serve the needs of this specific information community. There will certainly be times when users forego asking a question on Quora about Quora to instead check “the official newspaper of Quradom.”

Quora has pioneered the use of the Interest Graph as a dominant signal for its newsfeed. Quora asks new users to select Topics to follow, as part of its onboarding process, which is the first revelation that Topics are as important as Users to follow.

Quora’s newsfeed is an interesting showcase of what happens when you mix an Interest Graph with a Social Graph – and the result is the mysterious addictiveness so many have experienced, but found difficult to explain. An item pops up in your newsfeed not because you were following a user, but because you were following a related topic.

This often leads to Personalized Serendipity – or Unexpected Relevance – which is why Quora gets many people hooked.

By now, you've probably heard that Quora is the new must-have component of your company or product's social media and branding strategy. But how do you make the most of it? In this post, I'll give you some must-know tips on winning at social media strategy using Quora!

“TED Conversations” will be a question and answer forum similar to Stack Overflow or Quora, but with a few important differences. Conversations will take three forums: questions, ideas and debates. They’ll also be assigned an expiration date between one day and two weeks from their start. (TED conference presentations also have time restrictions of 18 minutes.) Both of these features are intended to encourage thoughtful conversation and participation by leaders with tight schedules.

Quora has seemingly inexplicably exploded onto the online PR scene. What is it, how can it be used for online public relations, and is it worth investing time in? Quora is useful to have on your PR radar for three main reasons:
1. reputation management,
2. market research and
3. journalist outreach.

The answer is simple: I think that Quora will continue to be an excellent resource if the same people who have been hyping it, and who have invested in it, keep posting their thoughtful answers. But I believe that the excess hype is destined to make Quora a victim of its own press. The quality of answers will decline. The people whose opinion I value, such as Quora’s #1 respondent, Robert Scoble, will simply stop posting on the site when they get drowned out by the noise from the masses. They will turn away after having their posts voted down (so that they look less important than their peers) and being personally subjected to the types of mindless, anonymous attacks that you see in the comments section of TechCrunch.

Quora, a social question and answer site, has absolutely exploded over the past few months. One Quora questioner asks, “What would happen if a website based in China copied everything from Quora?” The answer: it’s called Zhihu (知乎) and we’ll soon find out. I was recently sent a couple screenshots of Zhihu, a Chinese Q&A site that copies 99% of the Quora user interface (but it’s blue, not red!). Zhihu (知乎) means “know everything” in Chinese.

Beyond the noise and the expansion of the product to mobile and as a platform, in the long-term, in my opinion, the key challenge for Quora will be to continue to maintain an environment that fosters genuine, interesting, and fun engagement between real people—not brands or companies. Users will need strong incentives to keep contributing and consuming information on the site. Threads must continually improve over time. That will require the site to continue to be not just useful for users, but a site that helps them discover new knowledge and connect with other people with similar primary and/or secondary interests. Some of this interaction could be social, such as sharing recipes, or it could be educational, or it could lead to more meaningful real-world relationships.

Quora isn’t just for the tech elite. Outside of the tech-centric or off-beat topics, there is an abundance of resources that appeal to a range of tastes. In fact, businesses and non-profits can glean a wealth of information from Quora. Here are a few ways organizations large and small can tap into this active community.
1. Strengthen Customer Experiences
2. Research the Competition
3. Connect With Journalists
4. Embrace Long-Form Dialogue.
5. Expand Your Network
6. Establish Expertise
7. Shorten the Learning Curve
8. Cultivate Existing Relationships
9. Mine for Hot Topics

While tech writers, VC's and geeky enthusiasts of all stripes have an obvious, immediate use for the site, it may not be as clear how owners of small and medium-sized businesses can take advantage of Quora and Q&A sites in general.
- Market Research and Competitive Analysis
- High-Quality Answers
- Solving Specific Problems
- It's Not an End-All, Be-All

I struggled with this story. Should I add to the rapidly mounting tidal wave of Quora hype, or purposely ignore the new social darling to prevent further dilution of the fragile community? Ultimately, Quora is a massive trend, and relevant for the tourism industry. And since we have always promised to bring our readers the latest trends in travel tech...why you should and should not use Quora.

Quora has learned a lot from the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Digg, and it has provided an outlet for conversation and discussion that many other social sites have been unable to achieve. It’s a great site.

But despite having done an outstanding job attracting a user base and providing a quality experience with other big competitors on its tail, its growth is likely to be more steady and organic. Though Quora will grow this coming year and attract a substantial user base, I am skeptical of the claims that it will scale to the stature of Twitter. Here’s why.

I’ve now been blogging for 10 years. Looking back we haven’t seen all that much innovation for bloggers. You have a box. You type in it. Put an image into it. And hit publish. That’s much the same as the tools I had 10 years ago. But now comes Quora. I’m really loving it. I have a hard time explaining why. I’m not the only one, either.

Facebook’s earliest alums are founding new companies in what will hopefully kick off a long line of startups that influence the future of Silicon Valley. The company’s first chief technology officer Adam D’Angelo, who met Mark Zuckerberg a decade ago in prep school, launched his new startup Quora in beta testing last week. (Asana is another we’ve covered, from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.)