litphoria

I'd like to be able to see the number of views my profile gets.

You could use it to gauge interest but I don't think that'd be a very good idea. Views often have a high bounce rate (percentage of people who click on and then click away pretty quickly), meaning if it says something like '100' views that doesn't mean 100 people read your entire profile completely.

It's very easy to manipulate a counter and as such, doesn't always mean or prove much. A character that has 10 ads out at once and created today can easily have just as many views as one that's effectively been hidden though its 10 years old. Does this mean one is more interesting that the other? Not really. Doesn't prove much of anything with all things considered.

could promote very wrong kinds of behavior and inappropriate e-peen measuring

That's another valid point. I've seen it happen and given how easy it is for that number to be altered, it's silly.

I think a private counter could be interesting, but I'm sure most people don't want it private for pretty obvious reasons....

I think the benefit of views, at least how they were for me, was a way to show how much a profile is used. You could see that the character is often active by the fact that their profile is viewed a lot. Maybe if you add another feature that does a similar sort of thing, this could be ignored.

I'm rejecting this now that the discussion has died down and impressions are generally negative all around. We may find better ways to indicate activity but this overall just encourages the wrong behaviors.