I can’t probe others’ minds any more than you can. But, I do get a sense when talking to peers, and examining my own motivations and seeing how well or not they seem to fit on others.
I think that individuals’ motivations vary by their interest in the topic of particular sites. I’m a professional electrical engineer, so take EE seriously. That means there is also real tangible benefit to me being perceived as an expert. I spent a lot of time on the EE site writing high quality answers because:
- I enjoy teaching.
- I think I can explain technical topics better than most people.
- I want to be seen as the expert.
Note that #3 isn’t all about ego. I’ve gotten consulting jobs due to my activity on EE.SE. A high reputation has direct monetary value to me.
On the other hand, I’m on Photography and The Great Outdoors because these match things I do for recreation or personal projects. On those sites, I really don’t care about my rep much. It’s nice to be seen as one of the “residents”, but its not a strong motivator. It is nice to feel rewarded for the effort of writing an answer.
I’m on Physics because of personal interest. I’m nowhere near an expert, and there are some true experts there. I really don’t care about my rep there at all, but I do look at the rep of others and partially form opinions about them accordingly.
Thinking about this more, not only are my motivations different on different sites, but each site has surprisingly different dynamics, their resident experts, and the rewards they receive for participating:
Electrical Engineering. Has a core of experts that are professionals. They take the site and public perception seriously. Experts have 100-300 k rep. The site is active, has definitely reached critical mass.
The Great Outdoors. The top people seem to be outdoor enthusiasts. There don’t seem to be any professional guides, mountaineers, or publicly known “experts”. The top 5 users range from 30 to 66 k rep. Site traffic is low, has not reached critical mass. Too many would-be users don’t know the site exists.
Photography. There are some professionals, but the top people seem to be avid amateurs. The site is reasonably active, but my impression (could be quite wrong) is that it’s slowing down. The professionals aren’t all that engaged. The top 5 range from 70 to 150 k rep. The first pro seems to be #6 with 45 k rep.
Physics. Has a core of professional experts. The top users are all pros, seemingly mostly academics. There is much discussion on meta, particularly about keeping the site clean. This is largely driven by the experts. The top 5, all pros, range from 110 to 292 k rep. The site is active, has definitely reached critical mass.
One thing this shows is how diverse these sites are, with the likely motivations of the top users also diverse. Note that sites seem to do well when there are real professional experts available. I don’t know how much public recognition on the site motivates the physics experts, because I think most of them are plugged into scientific paper publishing. This may mean (but I don’t know) that site rep is less important to them because their peer rep comes from elsewhere.
The sites mostly run by amateurs or enthusiasts aren’t as active. I suspect the top users there don’t care that much about their site rep because they are there more for fun than as a professional activity.
So, what does all this mean to the question at hand? I think it says that there is a wide diversity of site norms and motivations of the top users out there. What I’ve been talking about is the category of professional experts that don’t have other means (like publishing scientific papers) of getting public or peer recognition. So, it may be a niche, but then again everything is a niche. It would be wise to design the software knowing that at least for some topics having resident professional experts is important, and those experts see it as a professional activity which they do expecting public recognition in return.
This is really not a hard thing to do. Perhaps some sort of recognition and rating system needs to be separately selectable per site. But, it’s a requirement for some sites to do well.
That makes sense. Good questions are inherently rewarded with good answers. There is no such inherent reward for good answers.
Sorry I wasn’t clear. I meant the wider “you all”, not you in particular. There have been comments like “rep whore”, and implications that wanting public recognition is morally wrong, and the like.
Again, I wasn’t referring to you personally. Read a little further down and you find:
if people are here to get some sort of recognition and pat on the back, then I don’t want them here
those people are not the kind of person we want to attract