How vanity metrics increase my productivity

It's definitely different strokes for different folks on this one, but as long as the goal is noble, I think it's fine for people who get off on metrics to use them. Not all people are motivated that way.. (luckily!)

Years ago, I had a goal of getting on the now-hidden /leaders page on HN so worked hard at writing good comments, submitting good links, etc, every single day and I made it. Did I add value to the site? Yes. Did the borderline-useless ego boost keep me contributing? Sure.

I contribute a lot less now that /leaders has been hidden and since getting above top 20 is crazy hard, but HN is now so busy plenty of people are picking up the slack, whereas early on, I have to wonder if the leaders page did help artificially boost engagement.

I had a similar moment yesterday. I installed Piwik, an open source web analytics package, on my personal website yesterday and it was really exciting. Those metrics weren't just an incremental measure of success but rather opportunities to improve. What are the entry pages? Where is the bounce rate the highest? What is actually capturing users' attention? It's been exciting to view my personal site, which includes my resume and portfolio, as a living product, even if that product is me. More often than not, creating interesting projects and showcasing them is always a great idea.

Along the same lines Rescue Time has been a help to me. While it's less about direct competition I still like seeing my productivity growing.

I agree this can be fun and encouraging... As long as it's healthy competition between peers (or better yet, competition against oneself), and NEVER to be used as a metric by managers for salary/bonus/firing purposes... you get my idea. In the wrong hands vanity metrics are a really dangerous weapon. I know a few cases.

Completely agree with the author, competition is always a great way to motivate coders, and masterbranch definitely helps this with the easy way to measure the coder skills.