User Story 7 - As a Stakeholder, I want to have the leaderboard of users who have the most upvoted replies, so that engagement on the posts is further encouraged for users

[DachiCharkviani]

Impact:

Essential to Overall Functionality:

The leaderboard for users with the most upvoted replies plays a significant role in promoting user engagement and rewarding high-quality contributions. While not essential to core functionality, it acts as a motivational tool, encouraging users to engage more actively with posts. It also fosters a sense of competition, which can lead to increased user interaction and higher-quality content on the platform.

Beneficial to Stakeholders:

Encourages Engagement:

By highlighting users with the most upvoted replies, the leaderboard incentivizes users to post thoughtful and valuable content, contributing to higher engagement levels.

Enhances Visibility of Key Contributors:

It allows other users to easily identify influential or knowledgeable contributors, fostering a sense of community and trust in the platform.
Improves Platform Retention: Users who see their efforts recognized via the leaderboard are more likely to continue participating, helping retain active users.

Content Quality Improvement:

Increased competition for top spots on the leaderboard could elevate the overall quality of replies, leading to more meaningful discussions and interactions.
Overall, this feature provides significant value to stakeholders by driving user engagement and improving content quality.

Effort:

Time/Effort Required:

The leaderboard feature involves both backend and frontend work, with a focus on real-time data aggregation and UI integration.

Estimated effort breakdown:

Backend:

Create a system that tracks and stores upvote counts on replies, along with an API to retrieve the top users based on their upvotes. Ensure performance optimization for frequent updates (8-10 hours).

Frontend:

Design and implement a user-friendly leaderboard UI that displays top users based on upvoted replies. Integrate the leaderboard into the relevant sections of the platform (8-10 hours).

Real-time Updates/Optimization:

Depending on the scale of the platform, the system may require real-time updates or periodic refreshes of the leaderboard (5-6 hours).

Testing & QA:

Ensure that upvotes are accurately tracked, the leaderboard is displayed correctly, and performance remains stable under heavy usage (5-6 hours).

Total estimated effort: 26-32 hours.