← Quora archive  ·  2012 Jan 02, 2012 11:24 AM PST

Question

Do non-Americans on Quora feel marginalized?

Answer

This question is strictly unanswerable on Quora. You have to ask people who've left Quora or took a look and decided not to participate. You can discount the non-American answers here because they've obviously self-selected due to a higher-than-average comfort level with American culture compared to their home-culture peers. Those who feel marginalized will leave pretty quickly, because there isn't enough value to make a marginal status worthwhile.

I have been a US citizen for about a year, and a resident for about 14, and "American" is my default perspective today. But my 22 years in India have still left me with the ability to boot up a very non-American perspective when I want to (dual boot brains are useful that way). And from that perspective, yeah, this is a very American site, and if my Indian OS was all I had installed in my brain, I would be turned off by the site. It is notable that none of my Indian friends have joined the site, though they know that I am active here. And this includes both FOBs like me and friends living in India. There is definitely an opportunity for regional Quora-clones. You can internationalize and globalize this site to a limited extent, but this isn't really like Wikipedia. You cannot translate the very American culture (highly optimistic and positive, a focus on practical advice, far lower cynicism/sarcasm than other cultures...). So I expect to see Quora clones soon in large non-American populations. Russia, China and Brazil is where I'd keep my eyes open.

The effect is likely to be far stronger outside the Anglosphere. I see very little Latino activity here, given what I'd expect based on population alone.