[ratel]

The OP was invited to the partner program by Quora who actually thought a financial incentive was a good way to get quality answers. You seem to have moral objects to that, but both partners in this partner program were obviously okay with it. Nowhere it is claimed that his answers where spam or of low quality. As I understand the system, money is awarded on the quality answers the question receives. Maybe he is just good at asking the right questions. There are lots of people making a career out of asking the right questions.

Now Quora would still be fine terminating the partner program with the OP for whatever reason they see fit. What is not okay is that he did not get paid for the questions he asked, because that was the nature of their partnership.

It looks like Quora is trying to avoid paying for a service (questions) they received within a contract (the partner program) they themselves proposed. The term scam does not seem too far fetched.

[mcv]

It's a bit of both, but you're absolutely right that Quora carries a significant chunk of the blame here. The guy may have been a spammer, but he only became so because of the incentives from Quora's partner program. Quora encourages people to become spammers, and then punishes them when they do. It sounds like a weird kind of test of whether you can resist their incentives.

Ending the partner program when you fail that test might make sense, but quora not paying for the questions they asked for seems unfair, possibly fraudelent. But if Quora wants quality questions to come out of this partner program, they'd better take a good look at their incentives. Maybe reward people only for their 5 best questions every month or so.

[fortran77]

They could have also paid him out, and then told him they didn't want his participation any more. That would have been much more ethical.