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James Kelly wrote:
I agree, an aikikai wide, or an organization wide list of all active members above, say, 3rd Dan would be good, but it may be too much work.
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Well, it occurs to me that most organizations (that I know of) have some sort of hard listing of all dan ranks. In New School Aikido it's a printed list protected by clear plastic on the wall of the dojo.
It's a lot of typing, but it seems to me like a database like this would be useful on a lot of levels.
But...
...it can't be generally searchable. Privacy issues would start to come into play. It's fine to look up an instructor and check his credentials, but what about some guy just walking in off the street? Who should be allowed to search his name?
Offhand, I think it should only be a prospective instructor. Even then, there needs to be a good reason. One good reason, of course, would be that they have a desire to recognize previous rank for a new student. But I can see an unscrupulous sort searching for shodans at nearby schools and trying to lure them away. (It doesn't make sense to me, but I've heard of similar stunts.)
I'm an instructor and a dojo cho, so I don't particularly care who knows what my rank is (Nidan, if you care) or where I got it (New School Aikido in Stockton, CA). But there are a lot of shodans (and nidans and sandans and ...) at my teacher's school that would just as soon not advertise their rank.