UX Research: Quora ‘Answer Collapse’
I’m an frequent writer on Quora. I try to write 2–3 times a month. When one of my answers went viral last year, I was hooked to the platform. Since then, a few of my answers have garnered significant upvotes.
Earlier this year, Quora collapsed one of my answers with ~22k upvotes on account of ‘lacking proper attribution.’ Click on ‘View on Quora’ below or click → here.
I edited my answer and made an appeal to moderators. They didn’t uncollapse it. I reached out to Quora writer relations team. They said that they had uncollapsed one of my earlier answers with similar violation, but since I made the mistake twice, they won’t give me another chance for violating plagiarism policy.
Hence I highlighted them the problems that a user faces while complying with the Quora policies in this post. Click on ‘View on Quora’ below or click → here.
I also explored some designs that may solve the problem. I’m doubtful that my voice ever reached them.
So I did a qualitative project on Quora ‘Answer Collapse’ feature to see how other users feel when their answers are collapsed. And if there are some design learnings to make the feature better. I am sharing that research in this post.
Research objective
To gauge how users feel when their answers are collapsed on Quora.
Research methodology
The users were hand-picked from the pool of people who write on Quora. Since I wanted to understand the answer collapse feature, I wanted to pick people who have written a significant number of answers (more room for answer collapse), plus who have garnered user attention in the form of followers. Of the 33 people I reached out to, only 32.4% agreed to participate, which means I interviewed 11 users. All the users interviewed have written answers ranging from 100 to 4k, and have significant number of followers ranging from 1k to 102k. A few of them preferred a call, while the rest gave written answers on Quora messages thread.
I had been itching to employ a creative research method after listening to a talk (below) where a Fb researcher gathered user feedback on its own messaging platform. This Quora self-project provided a good creative outlet to my research methodology in the form of utilizing Quora messages as a tool to recruit users as well as to converse with them.
Research questions
Research questions covered three brackets:
1. Goal of writing on Quora, and motivation to continue
2. Effect of answer collapse on user: reason, feelings, emotions, expectations
3. Ideal feature: if not answer collapse, then what?
Here’s and example of the notes I took during these conversations:
Findings:
1. People write on Quora to share knowledge. It also keeps them occupied.
There are a few reasons as to why people write on Quora, mostly because they see it as a platform to share knowledge, besides keeping them occupied.
Furthermore, anyone who has a passion for writing feels that Quora’s audience-base can give them visibility tough to hoard anywhere else.
Some of the users talk about their one answer going viral, and this appreciation serving as the primary motivation for them to stick to the platform.
2. When their answers are collapsed, users feel as if they are punished for committing a crime.
When their answers are collapsed, users feel hurt.
“It hurt very badly.” ~GV
“I felt bad and hurt.” ~NC
“Frustrated. Like someone stole my hard-earned money.” ~IJ
Users language is indicative of the fact that they feel as if they are alleged of a crime by writing an answer violating Quora’s policies. They say,
Collapsing an answer is making it disappear from audience’s news feed where it can garner views and upvotes. Sure, it hurts, but to the extent to make user feel as if he’s accused of a crime? Can there not be an easier way to help user improve an answer/write a policy-compliant answer than to make him feel like a criminal?
Besides, there is a lack of clarity on the real reason of answer collapse. Almost all users resonate the view that some people use this feature to report answers which do not conform to their narrative.
However, after a few trysts with answer collapse, the users just accept it as a “necessary evil.” Or they develop philosophical explanations to make peace with Quora:
“I’ve no right to be offended. Quora is not doing me any service. I’m not a paid subscriber. I’m a guest of a platform built by somebody.” ~GV
3. Half of the users feel that Quora is violating people’s right to expression by collapsing answers.
There is a mixed opinion on answer collapse being the right thing to do by Quora or not. Half of the users say it’s wrong while the rest half differs. Those who say it’s wrong, argue about the users’ freedom of expression. They also call that human moderators are essential to judge the right and wrong with an answer and bots can’t be relied upon.
Whereas those who say it’s right feel that answer collapse is justified to maintain the content quality. They also opine that answer collapse is not wrong, though collapsing without a good reason is.
However, almost all of them feel that collapsing an answer straightaway is not right, a warning should be given before collapsing.
“A warning should be given before collapsing.” ~NR
“Give a warning message. Most of the time, these are innocent mistakes.” ~IJ
A few users also talk about unwarranted use of BNBR policy, especially in comments, as if it is applicable to only the ones who got reported. They frequently complain that moderators miss to see the context in which it was said, or the statement of which it was a reply.
“It’s like they can attack you personally, but you are not allowed to do the same.” ~RH
Conclusion
A great indicator of users’ engagement with a site is the users’ recency of visit i.e. the number of days between users’ last and current visit. I think for a lot of Quora users, it is just a few hours. If I could get my hands on Quora Analytics data, I’d look at their recency numbers, and will probably find that a significant user base opens Quora like an average user opens Facebook, multiple times a day.
Apart from keeping users occupied, Quora is a good platform to share knowledge. Generating content gives users a sense of empowerment, and motivation to write more when answers garner appreciation in the form of upvotes.
However, when answers are collapsed for a reason not clearly visible to users, they feel hurt. They undergo the pain of being alleged of a crime. Some feel that Quora is being too strict and rigid with its policies, whereas others feel that collapse is justified to maintain the content quality. All in all, answer collapse hurts a user badly. I’ll raise the question again: Can there not be an easier way to help user improve an answer/write a policy-compliant answer than to make him feel like a criminal?
If you like this, check out my other medium post. I can also be followed on Quora here.
