@benisuǝqbackwards That's fine, we'll agree to disagree.

@benisuǝqbackwards See also my comment to Bart - we have to work with the reality of what motivates people. It would be nice if we all could just "[give] good answers to well asked questions" but I don't think that's the reality of how people work. If someone asks me a question, irregardless of context, my answer will always be prejudiced on how deserving I find the person asking is, not just how deserving the question is. If you disagree with my assessment of the psychology of the users, say so. But you have to model the system on how people do act, not how you wish they acted.

@Bart You may not "want" people to give mediocre answers because the questioner has a mediocre standing, but that doesn't mean that they won't. I'm saying that the standing of the questioner is a factor, regardless if you want it to be or not. Attempting to hide the standing may cause people to assume it's a mediocre user. Plus, we want to encourage people to be "good users", don't we? If being a "good user" means getting better answers, we should use that motivator, not hide it.

@Bart "that's a pretty convincing argument against the proposed feature" - maybe in the short term. But we are talking about promoting certain behaviors over the long term. Both in the people asking and answering questions.

@benisuǝqbackwards No argument about your desired end-result. But it's the way there. If we stipulate that people are more inclined to give good answers to "good people", we should encourage people to be good. Having something like a "citizen status" is one way. If being a "bad citizen" causes you to get answers with less quality, people will be encouraged to be "good". If you truly believe that the vast majority of users here don't care about who the questioner is, then disregard this. But you have to align the rules and the field with what motivates the users.

@benisuǝqbackwards or I might not answer the questions at all (or not with any great effort) since I don't know anything about the questioner. You get all questions answered equally bad.