Three classes of topic do not get MVW that I have observed:
- Topics that are not popular enough (by some metric) to get statistically significant MVWs. How many followers does a topic need to have on Quora in order to have its own Most Viewed Writers section?
- Adult topics: Why don’t many adult Quora topics have Most Viewed Writers despite the topic size and popularity? The presumed rationale is that Quora want to restrict distribution of adult topics, and thinks being labelled as MVW in an adult writer would be somehow embarrassing.
- I think the block of MVW on adult topics is more embarrassing, myself, but I guess that’s why I don’t work for Quora.
- Politically contentious topics, such as Thatcher and Theresa May. Trump and Sanders didn’t have MVWs either, as Sierra Spaulding has pointed out. If the embarrassment rationale holds there too, I will hypothesise, Quora is preemptively thinking that to be tagged as MVW in a politically partisan topic would be somehow embarrassing, or would encourage people to start attacking each other.
- Because noone will have ever seen the partisan answers that earned them MVW in those topics to begin with, and the lack of MVWs has prevented Quorans from ever labelling each other as fascists or commies. Or something.
… No, I don’t agree with those restrictions on MVW. And no, I don’t know the official answer on why, because I’ve never seen official word on it.