Not to sound too mercenary, or put down those who are genuinely interested in helping others, but it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that people contributing to websites other than their own, are hoping their efforts will in-fact win them some recognition or profile as a result:
The success of “crowdsourced” websites like YouTube and Wikipedia has puzzled psychologists, since a small number of people do most of the work for little obvious reward, while the rest benefit, seemingly without giving anything back. One explanation is that people just feel good helping out the community, but now researchers at Hewlett-Packard’s lab in Palo Alto, California, have shown that contributors are in it for personal glory, not public service.
