Molly C.

This is from a guy named Harold who became a paid writer and then was banned by Quora Moderation with no explanation. It's very telling of what is wrong with Quora... and why it's likely doomed to fail.

There is one critical issue that his stopping Quora from being fantastic: Quora Moderation. How do I know?

I was on Quora for about a year. After a few months of light use they asked if I would like to get paid to write on the site. I thought, what the heck, this could be fun and rewarding. I earned a bit of money the first month and wrote a lot of questions, honed the craft of writing that generated more answers and meaningful engagement with other Quorans. I worked hard to be respectful to others and even though I'm not a fan of President Trump, I always referred him as President Trump (and not just plain Trump or other much more insulting terms like other users employed). Despite this, I noticed that Trump supporters started to malign me with personal comments. Most of it I ignored but when it got really insulting I would ask for Quora Moderation.

By the second month my views were now in the millions and I was earning five times more money than the previous month. Around this time, I started to get some messages from other Quorans that I had better watch out, that I was being targeted by Trump supporters who were determined to bring me down. While I took these comments seriously and appreciated the help that other Quorans had provided me over my time on the site, I wasn't sure what I could do avoid being brigaded by people who clearly hated me.

Into my third month, things were really starting to build in terms of my upvotes, followers, and engagement. About a week or so in, when I logged in one morning, I got a warning from Quora Moderation that my account was suspended for one day because they had complaints that my questions were biased. The warning said that if I didn't rectify this I would be suspended again and that this could lead to me being banned for life from Quora.

So, I was even more careful about my phrasing and worked diligently to ensure my questions were to the point and non-biased. Two days later, a particularly nasty Quoran who had pursued me before with insults and personal attacks call me a "kike". Now, I'm not Jewish but my last name might have made him think I was. Anyway, the whole thing made me angry. I reported the comment as bigoted to Quora Moderation but nothing happened. In fact, the user repeated the insult and wrote "kike" again in the thread.

In response, I decided to write about this exchange in one of the Quora forums that users go to about racist, bigoted, or insulting commentary. I uploaded a screen shot and didn't fuzz out the other Quora user's name.

That was it, banned for life. I wrote a long appeal asking Quora very politely to reconsider. Nope. They owed me money but never paid and they just cut me off with no feedback whatsoever. Other Quorans kept me up to date about what happened afterwards. Quora never responded to any other pleas for more information. And the insult remained online for a week, the word "kike" hanging there, much to the chagrin of others in the community. Then Quora finally took it down and the same Quora user just put it back up, repeating it again. It was distressing for many Quorans but there was also fear that they would also get banned if they spoke out too much.

Quora is a good concept and many Quorans are intelligent thoughtful people, even some who support President Trump. I had many a good conversation with others. And I succeeded more than once turning a negative comment into a positive dialogue and built some respect with people I have little in common with in the process. But some Quora Moderators are so heavy-handed and closed to any real appeal or dialogue that it deeply harms the way people communicate in the community. You can see that reading through peoples' commentary here. Quora Moderation is the biggest issue the forum faces and it seems to be getting worse.

And that's the real shame IMHO. Cause people like me are what Quora needs to flourish.