[khedoros1]

> it reassures me that I am not reading comments by newly minted young adult or a 20+ years experienced person doing mostly rote work.

What does that matter, if the comment is good? Nothing is inherently bad about those comments, just like nothing is inherently good about others.

Rather than a blue tick in the comment thread, it might be useful to have something like that inside their user profile. For example, animats has "John Nagle" in his "about" field. Having the information available but not initially visible might be valuable to help support claims like "As one of the early workers on network congestion" without coloring the interpretation of statements outside of his area of expertise (basically, avoiding attaching an "argument to authority" fallacy to every celebrity-posted comment).

edit: Bah, just saw your later comment where you suggested a similar mechanism. Sorry.

[p333347]

You quoted me "it reassures me that I am not reading comments by newly minted young adult or a 20+ years experienced person doing mostly rote work." and said "What does that matter, if the comment is good? Nothing is inherently bad about those comments, just like nothing is inherently good about others."

I can't believe you were so eager to respond to me that you didn't continue reading my post. I answer your query like in the very next sentence.

[khedoros1]

I read the whole post several times before responding, and re-read over parts of it while responding. I just don't think that you provided a well-justified reason. Why is reassurance a good thing? That seems like it'd imply that you're relaxing your guard when considering their opinion.

[p333347]

> I just don't think that you provided a well-justified reason

I was implying something like why reading something from a textbook is better than a random answer on reddit or yahoo answers. Mind you, I am talking about posters talking about specific things, not giving opinions on a variety of things, which is why I mentioned "topics in which they are known for".

> Why is reassurance a good thing?

I prefaced my post with "personally" specifically to avoid this line of discussion. It is a personal perception, and as I said elsewhere it is futile to argue about perceptions. The answer is, it just is.

> That seems like it'd imply that you're relaxing your guard when considering their opinion.

That's reaching.