On 3/5/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
Academic credentials seem to me to have little to do with many of the skills necessary to being a Wikipedian (even less so when it comes to positions of trust)
But if you feel that way, then wouldn't it be accurate to say that they shouldn't be on a user page in the first place? User pages are supposed to be for helping build the encyclopedia, after all. If credentials aren't helpful, and they're potentially harmful, then by all means get rid of them.
This does raise another issue though. What if someone doesn't claim anything on their user page, but instead links to their web page outside Wikipedia which makes the claim.
It seems like anyone who wants to lie about their credentials could easily use this loophole if it's allowed. But not allowing such links would be pretty much impossible to police (or overly restrictive if no links at all are allowed). This is not saying that it's a bad idea to at least keep the fake credentials out of userspace, just saying that the usefulness is somewhat limited.
Anthony