Who participated in or contributed to the 2013 New Year's Eve Quora'thon -- and how was it?

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If you joined by G+ Hangout, or Skype, or otherwise added questions and answers as part of the 24 hour Quora community-building experiment, put your name here! And tell us how it was?

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User-9891911552621799710, David Urquhart, Kaushik Chakraborty, User, etc. invite or tag people you met!, Adisa Nicholson, Sameer Dhingra, Manjot Pal Singh, Diane Meriwether, Shannon Del Vecchio, Shane Dillon, Dave Hogg, Jan Leadbetter (did it work for you?), Matt Langley, Sangeeta Chopra, Dan Munro, Christoffer Aasted, Jennifer Miller, Ezra HaLevi, Christopher Craft, Brian Fey, Emily Smith, Murat Morrison

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I turned up 1 hour before my scheduled time slot, and we were mid-way in a discussion about the ethics of dealing with criminals such as mass murderers and rapists. That was going fairly well, it was an open debate, and we got to speak about 4 psychological experiments to talk about how people conform and are sheep. We then spoke about arranged marriages and I suggested a book about it. We also discussed whether religions are a good thing, and if we can get on in life without needing religion to guide our ethics or motivation in life.

My thoughts on this, is that some people are as intellectual, or don't have a "one track mind" for lack of a better term, off Quora, as they are on Quora. The veil of answering in your intrinsic interests, isn't a mirage.

Once my time slot happened where I was the host, I gave people 2 surprise challenges, which were icebreakers; and they somehow managed to give people enough common ground so that we were speaking for 4 hours. The tone started light hearted, as we were all laughing at the tomfoolery. There was also this crazy book that we heard a passage of and just had to know what it was. I forgot who read it and what it was called. My challenges worked so well, that I couldn't get through them all. Maybe next time.

My thoughts on this, is that Jan Leadbetter and Stephanie Vardavas wanted to make it, but could not, so maybe next time. And shoutout to everyone who was hours or minutes late as well.

We later we talked about 3 people reminiscent of surgery talking about their experiences, so and so had a gall bladder taken out, and they spoke of working in customer service as the number 1 employee of AOL and training the 3 floors of the building after making it into a psychology slash science by scrapping the internal rules, and also disclosing to the others what we're good at that we want to do. Also we heard about a community band that Jennifer Miller spoke about and I didn't know community bands existed. Also this dude who has a 6 month old child talks about how he writes and does music, Shannon Del Vecchio spoke about how she's only recently starting to write again, and I managed to sell copies of my 2 novels on that day.

My thoughts on this, is that people have lots of problems in their life, and they need someone to share it with, also that people do constructive things with their minds, and they need someone to share those creations with too. I didn't say anything much here, as I felt the time was theirs.

We didn't actually notice that the New York and Chicago time slots were cancelled, as the two hour break after the 4 hour conversation compensated for that. It made a nice maintinee break

The next conversation had Brian Fey talking about his time in Bosque Village, himself, and the Geography of Mexico and various American states. It's always fascinating learning about Geography, as it's the subject that connects to every subject you can think of, English, Maths, Science, Art, Culture, History, everything. Then Emily Smith popped up and she was explaining about various things about America that we all didn't know about, as she's a American Studies student. Two good quotes came out of that talk from Diane and Emily's dad.

My thoughts on this, is that Geography is the most interesting subject, because it connects to every single subject you can think of. It connects to English, Maths, Science, Psychology, Economics, History, Sociology, and I forgot the rest.

Then the conversation went on and on about other things that were interesting, and Ariel Williams was talking about lots of wonderful and wonderous things that sounded like eloquent birdsong stories that I forgot about, then I got tired and fell asleep at 5am. Sorry about that.

It was 10am when people wanted to thank me for helping to organise the event, and I don't know what to say about that, because there's only 7 people there who I get along with, and I'm not sure if the next digital meetup Google Hangout will work, unless we get more or different people there or if we can have the same small groups again, because I can see small groups that formed out of the 40 approx people who turned up. If I was one of those extroverts who find the infinite myriad of people interesting from all walks of life, the world would be a better place.

Overall it was better than expected, and contrary to what you might think, I didn't really talk much throughout, so it was more about them, than it was about me. And what I can take away from this, is that I learnt about various people who use the site in a way I couldn't than if I'd just seen them on Quora like 2 days ago. I don't think I never accepted anyone, and people were happy, so what more can be said?

We were maxxing at 10, so next time, I might just get Jennifer Li and Ellie Kesselman who said they'd like to go next time as they speak to me, and maybe there would be 2 simultaenous ones if people can read this and think that maybe they'd like to take part because so and so did, so we have network effects at play and some key players. But that's pushing your luck, that is. So the next time there's a digital meetup Google Hangout, I probrably will not even turn up. And now you know how it was.