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Recently text of the form "and then the white stones did wail and gnash their teeth for they saw how the fell power of black had enslaved them -- Gheorghe Vasile, 8dan" was edited to change 8dan to 6dan. At the time of writing the author was 8dan. Should such signatures be updated as time ticks by, and if so what should the protocol be for updating them?
Isn't this what homepages are for?
I think that perhaps rating databases are best for keeping track of a particular person's rank. One school of thought on Senseis Library is that in order to know how reliable content is, the contributor attaches their rank to the page content they add. There are obvious problems with that, the rank being out of date, that a rank in one country is not equal to a rank in another country, and that the rank says limited amount about the validity of their contribution.
Both ranks and ratings have limited reliability. For some players, ranks are more meaningul; for others, ratings are more meaningful; for yet others, both contribute to relevant information.
Ranks derived from rating systems can differ from ranks of ranking systems. E.g., a rating system can start ranks 1/2 rank later than a ranking system.
Some systems are totally unreliable. E.g., the KGS rating system produces nonsense such as: real world 3d is 9d on KGS, a former European Champion can be 3d on KGS but is real world 6d, 80% winning can be not enough to increase a rank, 50% winning against equally ranked players can drop a rank, the best strategy for improving a rank can be not to play at all etc.
Usually, a person himself knows best his rank and reliability of a rating. Therefore, others should not "correct" it without asking. If a rank or rating is stated for a date and system, there is no meaning in altering the value for the given assumptions.
Yes, validity of contributions are not given by ranks or ratings but by correctness and verifyability of contents. Ideally...
Please no new systems (whatever their name might be) that make it harder to edit and produce more maintenance work than anyone is willing to do. There is a pile of undone maintenance / library work already as is. (Dead external links, images etc.)
(Edited for clarity)
I am not sure how this fits into the discussion. I definitely agree if you mean we should not adopt conventions (such as updating these strengths) that involve us in a lot of work, but I do not know what shortcuts (¿aliases?) or macros (¿templates?) you are thinking of.