Well, there’s all the guesses on How can I become a Top Writer on Quora?, and the little hints dropped by Quora Inc, such as in Announcing Top Writers 2017 by Jonathan Brill on The Quora Blog:
As always, selection criteria include: the number, quality, and popularity of contributions, and moderation history.
So, the main criterion applied is being a good member of the community. Although yes, lots of head scratching about the relative weighting of these factors, and opacity that doesn’t do anyone any favours.
That isn’t the only criterion applied though. Two other criteria that have been applied are:
- Being an employee of Quora, regardless of the number, quality, and popularity of contributions (compared to other users). There has been discussion about this in the past (see Why have so many Quora employees awarded themselves Top Writer status?) This has been done presumably for reasons of dogfooding.
- Being a wellknown person outside of Quora, and not really much of a contributor to the community at all. For example, I give you the latest first-time Top Writer for 2017: Hillary Clinton.
I wonder if she’ll be wearing her Top Writer wind-cheater to any events…