First, allow me to declare that I am SLF.
Second, I have been reading PPRUNE for many years and always find interesting discussions and articles to follow and I find it a great way to start understanding some of the difficulties and challenges you guys face within your profession.
I can also see this thread going way off topic along with the way many other informative posts start out.
I can understand both sides to the argument when you professionals are trying to discuss things before a Walter Mitties destroys the debate. However, please don't under estimate how valuable and informative some of these posts are to those wanting to join the profession, learn respect for the profession or just learn from the PROFESSIONALS.
Danny, I wouldn't dream of making a suggestion on what direction you should follow - You guys and Gals are the experts not me. However, may I please make a small suggestion for pprune in general?
Would it be possible to alter the profiles of pprune to make people to "declare" if they are CPL, PPL, ATC, SLF, or whatever qual they may have and then display it below their name and join date in all posts they make...
This would result in minimal overhead for the admins and whilst it is obviously open to abuse if someone has been found to have made a false declaration then they could be banned for life.
I am not sure if I explained that too well but it was just an idea. I hope you don't mind.