Quote Originally Posted by Halivel View Post
I'm not disagree, I'm just not sure that the difference will be as significant as people expect it to be. Mentor status is still a status by itself, so you can flex even without wearing an icon at all. What I mean is... people will find the way to poison the system in any case. Not that SE shouldn't do about this anything, of course - I did suggest how the system can be reworked to be better somewhere in this thread.
I've met many who flash the crown and actually refuse to give advice or react badly when asked for simple mechanics help. Those few, even if they are few are what people react badly to. I think the perception of what mentors are and the resulting accessibility problems would benefit greatly from getting rid of those few but potent cancers.

I've also made suggestions as to what could be done.. mostly I think that a mentor status should have to be maintained rather than being a one time threshold to break. Maybe not with direct votes. Perhaps a optional survey you could select to offer people you help. Maybe getting too many blacklists marks you for mentor review.