I think its good if we have one user account for all the SE sites(i.e. a StackExchange Profile).
Profile page should facilitate (from account owners pov):
- List all the SE sites we have subscribed and we can visit the site account by clicking on the link.
- A summarized status of each account (e.g. whether there are new replies and comments)
- List SE sites we have not subscribed and instant subscription capability to any SE site.
- Facility for grouping and using
separate names.
(It seams, some users don't like the idea of one profile (1). If a user doesn't want others to see all his/her accounts, then user can use separate names per group or account and set-up visibility settings so only the accounts with a similar screen names will be shown together. Yet account owner can manage them at one place )
Having a SE profile page will allow users to have separate accounts for each site, still managing them will be much easier. I am not suggesting to remove the profile pages we have at SE Q&A sites, I think separate profiles should be there since each site serves a different cause. Adding a link on each SE Q&A profile page, which will direct the user to SE main profile will be sufficient.
In the prevailing system visiting a SE site, which we don't use often, is a 3 step process. Lets say one wants to visit SE TeX but he/she has bookmarked StackOverflow only. Then steps should be StackOverflow > accounts > SE TeX. But if we have a Profile page at StackExchange, then it will be a 2 step process SE Profile > SE TeX.
If we have a SE site that we visit very often then we can bookmark it in our computer. But bookmarking all the SE sites we have signed up is pretty messy thing to do. So if SE provides a "StackExchagne Profile" page we simply can bookmark our profile page instead of bookmarking everything.
From StackExchange's point of view, enabling grouping facility will reduce the size of the user database.
Similar ideas were discussed in following pages, but I opened a different Question since the facilities I am requesting are different to them.
(1) One main account but separate sub accounts on each SE site
(2) Idea of a profile page
(3) Profile page from a visitors point of view
