The internet is often a source of knowledge, but you need to actually know how to find it, which isn't always easy, especially if you have a rather specific question in mind. And if you can't find what you're looking for with a single search, you usually will give up, but some of us become rather desperate and turn to other means. Some people need to know something seriously enough that all they can do is ask. This used to be the purpose of Yahoo! Answers, but these days, knowledge-seekers have turned more towards Quora.

Of course, all sources of knowledge, especially online, have their limits. When you directly ask someone a question online, you'll usually get some sort of snarky response, so coming across actual information this way is rare. But at the same time, that's often due to the quality of the questions themselves. The subreddit /r/InsanePeopleQuora has chronicled the questions that were a problem before any Quora user saw them, and we've curated a selection here.