I use dreamhost for my hosting provider, and when you contact their support via an online form they allow you to choose your technical level.
- I have no idea what's going on.
- I sort of know what this means.
- I understand the Jargon
- You can talk technical to me, I know what I'm doing.
- I know more about this than you do.
It got me thinking. Sometimes when answering a question on SO you are unsure of the OP knowledge level, while you can sometimes judge this from their question, it might be that they have no idea about apache or htaccess but they are a whizz at php.
Would it be in anyway useful for people to be able to rate their own knowledge in all the tags they use?
Example of how it would work.
Perhaps on the user page a user could select 1 - 5 stars for each tag they use.
- No Clue, not even sure what the letters stand for.
- Beginner, but getting to know some stuff
- Know my way around, just looking for a solution to my problems.
- Really know what I'm doing .
- I wrote the language/book/library!
This info could in someway be attached to the tag icon on the QA page. If a tag had'nt been rated, an answerer could ask for the OP to mark their knowledge level so the answerer could give advice at the right level.
I think this could be an interesting addition to SO, though I'm sure many will think its a terrible idea.