My reason for trying to delete it was also privacy related, although it will seem like a minor thing. It turns out that when you initially sign up, they turn any friend you have on facebook into someone you "follow" on Quora. My list of facebook friends is not public information. The list of people you follow on Quora is. Ergo, they turned a subset of my private friends list into a public list that anyone could see, and without warning.

Again, seems like a minor thing, but in principle it was a privacy violation, so as soon as I realized this I attempted to delete the account.

I also deleted my account when news of this nonsense non-feature hit. And their disabling it doesn't earn them back any points in my book.

There's no way to honestly make that move as a mistake. There's no way to 1. implement this feature as an opt-out and 2. do it without any notification to the userbase, as a mistake or as a "failure of communication".

This move can only happen, and only happen the way it did, because there is a core irreconcilable difference between my concept of privacy and theirs.

And as far as I'm concerned, their concept of 'privacy' can go get fucked with a rusty pitchfork.

With:

"Hi, Can you please delete my account and all data associated with it. I was originally impressed with Quora, but the main issue is that it is hard to navigate and its utility is limited. I do not want my information being passively shared on any service, especially one where I may be looking for answers to confidential questions.

After all, why else would I go to the Internet rather than just asking a friend?"

They deleted my account after about a day. The user experience is as much of a problem for me as the privacy. Navigating that site is probably the most fustrating experience on the web.

Quora ( among others ) seem to be taking advantage of our current naive attitudes about social networking, privacy and sharing. It might seem extreem to compare the email hack to these sharing hacks right now, but I think in time we will come to see that these two infringements have more in common than not.

Gratuitous plug for the Freedom Box Project: http://freedomboxfoundation.org/

Every time Facebook rolls out a new change, my feed is flooded with mock protest and boring complaint that aren't even backed up by any action, since people on the internet tend to be lazy (myself included.)

Deleting your account for a specific cause is, in my opinion, the best way to tell a site like Quora exactly how you feel.

There are probably <10k people actually contributing meaningfully to the site, and another 50k or so who are upvoting/etc. in a useful way. There are other users who come to Quora via SERP.

They screwed up communicating the impact of opt-in on this feature (by making it reciprocal to seeing the views of others), and didn't do a great job of explaining it after launch. Cautionary tale for other people rolling out features. Maybe rolling it out to a few hundred friendly to Quora users (i.e. not you, apparently) for feedback would have been smart.

Also, it's not like they killed your child or anything; I don't see why you care that much, or maybe you just like being offended about comparatively minor things. I'd be filled with furious anger if my previously-anon answers got un-anoned, but other than that, there's not much Quora could do to make me seriously angry. (un-Anoning users without court orders would bring out justified pitchforks and probably lawsuits, though)

re: your last paragraph, their actions have shown me that they dont give a shit about any user sentiment (unless major backlash, like this issue) and thus, I simply don't trust them with any information/content I produce/consume.

So, I deleted my account because I am so tired of not only companies like Quora, but where this general direction is taking us.

Hell, the NSA is archiving and data-mining every online transaction of everyone online and I think the acquiesence of the populous, even though seemingly small, through the actions of companies like Quora is simply unnacceptable.

Quora and Facebook are tools against freedom, not for it. If you have no safety in your sharing of information, you have no freedom.

Well, but no one is forced to share everything.

Sure there have been sneaky behaviors, unethical actions, etc

But most of the time your privacy is in your hands. A new "app" to read articles? No thanks.

So, I accept your downvote and will take it as constructive criticism to look at my tone in the future.

I LOVE getting a comment explaining a downvote. Frankly, I have said before here on HN, that I think that downvotes should require a comment explaining why the downvote.

So, Again, i appreciate the feedback. Upvote.

OTOH, I upvoted you as much for your tone as for the content of the message. Sometimes showing a little emotion to make a point, is the right thing to do.

PS: Fuck you is the best reason ever.

The problem with this desire is that it presumes competence. It is based upon the idea that everybody attempts to be a worthy contributor, and that every attempt is deserving of a proper critique.

This simply isn't the case. For many posts, a downvote is the best it deserves; an explanation of the root of its stupidity serves only to detract from the conversation at large.