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As originally posted, How do various factors affect the legality of streaming? started with the following request:

Note for Users Answering Questions: If you have a legal credential or are a lawyer, could you please note that in your Stack Exchange profile or in your response? The legal issues are probably at least somewhat ambiguous, so doing this would add credibility.

I think that such a request is contrary to policy here, and so I have edited the question to remove it.

Was I correct? Is such a request permissible? Should such a request be edited out of a question here on Law.SE?

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    I think the answer to the headline question is no, and that support for that answer can be found here: law.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/353/…
    – feetwet Mod
    Commented May 21, 2021 at 3:42
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    @feetwet almost to the point that this could be closed as a (meta) duplicate.
    – Dale M Mod
    Commented May 21, 2021 at 6:12
  • @DaleM maybe a new tag for the meta site to bind all these types of questions together?
    – grovkin
    Commented May 21, 2021 at 8:59
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    @grovkin good idea - what do you reckon?
    – Dale M Mod
    Commented May 21, 2021 at 10:09
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    @feetwet Highly relevant,but not quite a duplicate, IMO. The linked thread deal with users being encouraged to self-identify as lawyers, and some sort of badge or indication being created to show who had done so, and the favored answer was not to encourage this and not to provide such a badge. It did not deal with requests in questions to provide such credentials.
    – David Siegel
    Commented May 21, 2021 at 13:19
  • @DaleM I don't have the rep to even suggest it, but it looks like "legal-advice" and "disclaimer" tags are similar enough to "credentials". Maybe they can all be made synonyms.
    – grovkin
    Commented May 25, 2021 at 0:05
  • I disagree. The "legal advice" tag is for discussions about what is and what is not a RSLA and hoe to handle such. "Disclaimer" is about what to do with disclaimers posted in answers or profiles by users. "Credentials" is for discussions about requesting, posting, and vetting legal qualifications. Not unrelated, but significantly different.
    – David Siegel
    Commented May 25, 2021 at 0:11
  • @DavidSiegel it maybe the difference in how you use tags vs how some others use tags. Among other reasons, they are there so people can look for topics which they would be likely to free-associate with each other. They are not meant to be summaries of subjects or titles. Anyhow, it's not a hill I plan to die on. Just a suggestion of what may be useful.
    – grovkin
    Commented May 25, 2021 at 4:33
  • different but somewhat related in the main meta: Is it unusual for a moderator to ask for credentials or other user specifics related to the topic of an SE site?
    – uhoh
    Commented May 27, 2021 at 3:11

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If it's edited out, the reason for it should be outlined in a comment. Especially since this is a new user. Whatever community guidelines are influencing the decision to edit this out, the user should have a chance to review them preferably with a greater specificity than just a blanket reference to the guidelines at large.

BTW, I don't currently have a reference, but I think someone (in one of these discussions or comment threads) suggested that such information belongs in a personal profile rather than in every posted answer. Maybe this can be explained in a comment to this new user.

This is at least a 2nd time that such an issue has arisen in the recent history. There was also an issue of a user adding disclaimers to his answers.

I think the overarching meta discussion on this topic has already taken place here. In fact, one of the answers to that question has a link to the American Bar Association which is presumably on the topic.

The overarching topic can probably be described as how to make it clear that we are not engaged in unauthorized practice of law, but we are rather a resource to learn about the laws.

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    The linked thread has ,mostly to do with incurred "IANAL" disclaimers, not with requesting statement of qualifications, which is related but subtly different.
    – David Siegel
    Commented May 21, 2021 at 3:34
  • The purpose of edits is provided in the edit summary. A comment is not needed except for more general notification to a user, pointing them to the existing meta discussion on requiring user credentials.
    – user4657
    Commented May 23, 2021 at 9:12
  • @Nij I believe it's encouraged to err on the side of being extra informative when dealing with new users.
    – grovkin
    Commented May 23, 2021 at 12:19
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    "I think someone (in one of these discussions or comment threads) suggested that such information belongs in a personal profile". Yes, feetwet made that point.
    – Iñaki Viggers
    Commented May 23, 2021 at 13:37

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