Spectacularly creepy and unwebby to the extreme.

Publicly showing who has read a post fits in with their corporate values.

Namely, OCD and Narcissism.

It seems stalker-tastic too, though.

It didn't start that way but recent changes have made Quora quite stalkery.

I just checked my setting; it was defaulted 'No'. Maybe they've retreated a bit?

That's my guess. I've seen no writeup about it.

Whoa, this is super-creepy. I checked again, it was still 'No'. Then I visited the root page, quora.com, where the announcement about 'Views' appears. I hid the announcement.

UPON RE-CHECKING MY SETTINGS, IT HAD CHANGED TO 'YES'!

So the trigger is seeing (or perhaps dismissing) the 'Views' notice... even though there's no text explaining this toggle-on there.

Sounds like a page out of the Facebook playbook.

"By viewing this page you agree to our brand new rules..."

While meeting with the Facebook Open Graph team this week, they shared their insight that users don't like it when you change their settings automatically for them.

Only took Facebook eight years and several lawsuits to figure that one out.

What will Quora do about the backlash over Views?

I'll save you the time of clicking through. The answer is nothing.