Goodnight Quora. You were good.

I wish I had used Quora more. I loved the idea and the interface was strong. It was one of those things that I always planned to do when I had time. Asking and answering questions is the ultimate format to transfer and expand knowledge, after all, and it’s an honorable pastime for someone who isn’t into water skiing or bar hopping.

I just never got around to it.

Now that Quora is getting into the passive-activity-broadcasting trend, I never will get around to it.

Much like Facebook and other sites have been doing lately, Quora is going to let everyone know what you click. It doesn’t matter if you go into to answer a question or read the responses. If your finger slips and you click on a link, they’ll let everyone know. As Liz Gannes at AllThingsD puts it, this is “a further blow to online lurking”. Quora will now publicly show who has read a post.

I’ve written about how new read-receipt features from Facebook and other social and messaging services are hastening an end to online lurking by making passive participation active and accountable. Quora Views totally extends this trend — now just the simple act of visiting a page will be shared, by default.

No thanks. I’m good. The concept of privacy and free roaming on the internet is dying through social media. I simply won’t be a part of it. With that said, I’ll go ahead and post this to Facebook as well…

… such a sad society we’re in.