Do we need the view count? Advantages?

Question

Just wondering why we need the view count:

What advantages are there?

Comments

I opened a question in meta.stackoverflow, but it seems that even they have issues to find pro arguments: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/188342/why-is-viewed-x-times-shown-what-are-the-advantages-of-the-view-count

Answer 1

It's been added to 1.6 and having option to turn off so no matter I think

Comments

I am just curious and like to hear some pluses :)

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it's the only metric that captures the activity of the vast silent majority, i had the same question when i was designing my q&a landing page and figured out that stackoverflow maintained it after several usability studies ;)

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One advantage I see is for the asker. By the number of views s/he knows how active her/his question is. And if s/he is unpatiently waiting for the answer, s/he has an idea of how many people saw the question (as higher the number as higher the chance that somebody answers).

But apart from that, any other advantage?

Answer 2

I have question same as Kai, too. View count becomes big materials judging question for people who does not have technical knowledge in particular. That is why view count must be close. View count of current Q2A can guard artificial count up or thinks in question. It isn't difficult to lift up count illegally. If there is user doing something like that artificially, it should be punished. The stock market and various evaluation sites are very nervous in this point. The intentional market intervention deserves severe punishment.