Post 179: What is QD (Quora Digest)?

I have now had two posts relating to Quora Digest, so now might be a good time to better explain what it is for those who don’t know. In the second post, I believe I compared it to Yahoo! Answers. That is a fairly accurate comparison. It is a website where you can post questions and people can answer. When people answer they can provide “Credentials” to better bolster their answer with experience and authority. The answers are then voted on and while all are visible, the top voted answer is at the top. You can comment on all answers given, allowing for more discussion that Yahoo! Answers. Unlike Yahoo! Answers, questions can be submitted anonymously as can answers.

Questions on QD fall under five main categories: LMGTFY, Tell Me About It, Ask Abby, Fandoms, and That Depends.

The first LMGTFY (Let me Google that for you) questions are ones that they could easily Google for themselves. They have a right and wrong answer. These show up less often than the others. Examples of this are: “what professional basketball teams does Washington have?”, “what is a word that rhymes with doctor?”, “how many people live in New York?”.

The second kind, Tell Me About It, is less of a question where they are looking for an answer and more about “tell me a story when…”. They don’t really seem to serve as much a purpose as the other questions, beyond entertainment. They’re the kind of question you might ask on a first date when the conversation starts to go dry but you don’t want to resort to asking about the weather. Examples: “what was the saddest meal you ever ate?”, “what did the ‘weird’ kid at your school do to make them seem weird?”, “where was your first vacation?”, “what was the silliest reason you had to pick your kid up from school?”.

Ask Abby is basically the same kind of questions one would submit to an Ask Abby column, like “my son is doing this weird thing, how can I approach him about it?”.  Questions don’t have a right or wrong answer, as they tend to fall into grey areas, but it is asking an opinion rather than for a story. Other examples: “my boyfriend cheated on me, he wants to make it work and says I should cheat on him to make it even, but I don’t want to. What do I do?”

Fandoms are sort of a mix of all three of the previous categories. They are fandom specific questions that often involve a mix of stories, opinions, and facts. They ask about things related to specific fandoms. Like “why didn’t they use the Time Turner to kill Voldemort before people died” or “why didn’t Darth Vader know Luke and Leia didn’t die with their mom, couldn’t he have sensed them with the Force the way that Leia and Rey could sense when Luke died?” Some of them have definitive answers, others have answers that can be assumed from information provided, and some are totally a matter of opinion. These questions can also be things like “which character from this show is the best?” Which is asking people’s personal opinion, but relates just as much to storytelling as it does opinion because people tend to include stories about why they like that character.

The final type of question is That Depends. This generally works more as a subcategory of LMGTFY (where there is a definitive yes or no answer but they didn’t provide enough information to find it) or Ask Abby (where they are asking for opinions but didn’t give enough information). “Who gets custody?”: is one such question. Without more information, no one can really give a definitive answer. It would basically take an essay to guarantee they get the answer they are looking for because it doesn’t include information about the living situation or even what state/country they are in. Other times it is asking people’s opinion but only provides a little bit of information, so people are left guessing and saying things like “if X, then Y but if W, then Z. And if W and Z, then B”. So, almost every answer will have “it depends” in it somewhere. Other examples include, “is marijuana illegal?”, “my boyfriend says I cheated, but I don’t think I did, who is wrong?”, etc.

So far on my blog, I’ve answered a Tell Me About It (“What is the funniest reason you have been sent home from school?”, which I believe was actually “your kids have been sent home”) and an Ask Abby (“What do most people like, but won’t admit to liking?”). The post I have about Ross from Friends was also inspired by a question about whether or not he actually cheated on her, but I had been planning to post about it for a while. But I’ve answered more on QD, the ones I posted on here, I didn’t post on QD. Either because they were locked for answers or because I didn’t feel like sharing. Some people really just LOVE Ross. And I am already tired of arguing with strangers online about things that are more important (like women’s rights and common sense) than a fictional character.