Most Viewed Writers by Jackson Mohsenin on The Quora Blog. Written Aug 14, 2015.
Every day, people on Quora share their knowledge and expertise across a wide range of topics — everything from broad popular topics like Movies and Food to smaller, more specific topics like Typography and Superheroes.
Or Chicken Wing Eating Contests.
But, regardless of the size of the topic, we want to recognize the writers who are most actively contributing and helping people within the topics they know and care about. So today, we’re introducing Most Viewed Writers on topics.
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We think Most Viewed Writers is a great way to highlight the writers who are most actively contributing to the topics they know about. It will also provide readers with a new way to discover outstanding writers and browse popular answers in their favorite topics.
So… how will “writers who are most actively contributing and helping people within the topics they know and care about” be recognised now?
Well I guess the badges are still there. For now.
Change to Most Viewed Writer by Joel Lewenstein on Quora Product Updates. Written Feb 15, 2017.
We found that the Most Viewed Writer component was often dominated by a random set of topics, not necessarily those in which the writer had made the best contributions, or wanted to write in the future.
So the solution is Not To Highlight Any Of Them. And instead:
Over the last year, we’ve made improvements to the profile page to help writers signal to readers what they know about and what they want to write about.
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We’ve updated the Knows About section, streamlined the Credentials & Highlights section to be more relevant for readers, and most recently introduced Credentials.
Ah yes. My PhD is bigger than your PhD.
(It probably was, actually. 700 pp.)
These changes and more to come should allow a writer to have more control over how they’d like to be seen on Quora,
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Uhuh.
and will improve the relevancy of questions they’re asked, and how readers perceive their answers.
Because there will be no MVW on a profile or a topic page. So people will only have credentials to go on—credentials which don’t appear and won’t fit on the A2A modal window, which are meaningless in many a topic, and which leave Quora the province of the formally recognised expert: the tenured academic and the startup developer. (Which no doubt is the Quora that the Founders intend it to be.)
Those that have been following me closely will know that I felt compelled to take a few days off Quora recently.
What did I think, when I found out that anonymous answerers will not be able to comment or be notified on comments—followed immediately by this?
I thought of the Greek saying Θέλω ν’ αγιάσω μα δε μ’ αφήνουν.
“I’m trying to become a saint. But they won’t let me!”