I've been a professional C, Perl, PHP and Python developer.
I'm an ex-sysadmin from the late 20th century.
These days I do more Javascript and CSS and whatnot, and promote UX and accessibility.
Having used Quora for a decade, I can firmly agree that showcasing stats for users is a terrible way to engage users, whether that be followers, views, votes or whatever.
What ends up happening is that the community quickly splits into those who get "traction" early on, for example by:
luck
lightly gaming the system (e.g. targetting "top 10 ways to do X" clickbait at the most active timezones)
heavily gaming the system (e.g. following and quickly unfollowing popular users to boost your own stats)
actually writing good content
bringing a lot of followers from somewhere else they're already popular
luck, again
And you get a cast system where the people who are most popular end up being the people who get the most views. It's a positive feedback loop at the expense of new users.
Newbie arrives, sees no views on their content while locally-famous users get gazillions of comments and support; Newbie gets disheartened because they believe that the stats are a measure of their self-worth; Newbie leaves.
Having used Quora for a decade, I can firmly agree that showcasing stats for users is a terrible way to engage users, whether that be followers, views, votes or whatever.
What ends up happening is that the community quickly splits into those who get "traction" early on, for example by:
And you get a cast system where the people who are most popular end up being the people who get the most views. It's a positive feedback loop at the expense of new users.
Newbie arrives, sees no views on their content while locally-famous users get gazillions of comments and support; Newbie gets disheartened because they believe that the stats are a measure of their self-worth; Newbie leaves.
Well this is why I love dev.to. Feel free to share your knowledge irrespective of total views, stats etc.