I vaguely remember that quite a bit of discussion went into the decision of whether or not to even show the number of personmarks in profiles. I don't remember all the pros and cons we came up with, but do know that the decision to include them wasn't a slam-dunk.
To not have "ratings" like RB was a slam-dunk, though. It's pretty obvious how that system can be abused to give the appearance of credibility where it's not deserved.
My own opinion regarding my personmarks is that I don't care if I have a thousand of them or zero.
And in putting personmarks on individuals, I really don't do that very often. I have very few of them. Instead I maintain a kinda loose mental list of my own, usually people with whom I've exchanged PM's, so if I want to read their posts, I can just go to their profile from a PM and read on.
I know it's awfully handy, though. I'm sure I'm far from alone in having Zeev personmarked and like being able to just click a link on the Favorites page and read all of his posts in succession, no matter where they are.
So, having personmarks is a real good thing. I don't think caring about how many we have is, though, as it can be a major distraction when our focus here is talking about stocks; not gauging our own "popularity". And has been pointed out, we don't always person-mark someone because we like them or what they say.
Ultimately, this is Matt's call. I'm the business guy and one of the geeks. He's the User Interface and Communities guy.
Matt, got an opinion, pumpkin?
