When I find myself wanting to get a better idea about what to think about a user, I use the Perl Monks User Search to read a bunch of his or her nodes; a couple of recent as well as some of his/her highest- and lowest-rep nodes. That’s a much better indicator of anything substantial than how much they have posted, their XP, or how long they’ve been around. (An exception might be trolls, which tend to have an unusually low XP:writeups ratio, but that’s as much as it’s directly useful for.)

I’m not saying the reputation of the user is unimportant. I don’t believe in judging every node purely on its own merit – people have patterns of behaviour, and that is an important framework which any judgement of something they did must consider. But the only way to get to know these patterns is to get to know the person; or as far as an online forum is concerned, follow their posts for a while. Indeed, by staying around and participating for a while, you eventually come to recognise names – people who always write excellent nodes, those who are somewhat annoying, the funny people, the thoughtful ones, the friendly and the frank.

And none of this has anything to do with their XP or level. Doing anything to encourage people to judge by XP or level can only be detrimental to the quality of the community. You cannot judge personalities without getting to know them.

Makeshifts last the longest.