Need a +1 or twelve for a simple issue: Add an "Associations" field to our d.o profiles

Apologies in advance for this crossposting to 11 groups. I recently started an issue to help us get to know each other better: Add field for "Memberships in Associations, Societies, and Other Professional Organizations" to User Profile. The initial response was, "Don't see why not, but let's hear more support before we do." So this is an appeal to read the issue and consider giving it your support.

This is especially important in some of the more specialized groups — do I answer this question as if I'm talking to an SEO expert, or does this person need to know the background that they skipped over? To a great extent, being able to see their professional affiliations will answer that for me.

Another way it could help is to identify specific Drupalists to target for a BOF at any upcoming event. As a hypothetical example, maybe someone is not in the Design and Information Architecture group, but is in the IxDA. Shouldn't we be sure they know about any Design BOF that is being planned?

This new field would appear under "Work" and would be at least a text field so you could enter any membership you have that you feel is significant to your online activities in general or your activities with Drupal in particular. Ideally, the field would accept html, as does "Companies worked for," so you could link to the website of each group or association you list.

As with any other fields in the profile, no one would be compelled to complete this one. It would simply be available to anyone who felt that it was useful to share this information with others in the Drupal community.

Please take a few seconds to give your support to Add field for "Memberships in Associations, Societies, and Other Professional Organizations" to User Profile.