Quoting hal9g:

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Quoting RHo:

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Quoting hal9g:

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They would not be voted down because neither the voters nor the screeners will take the time to actually verify the data because it would be way too time-consuming!  People will either vote yes out of ignorance or neutral because they know that they don't know!

You mean they would vote the same way as they vote today for contributions which break the rules? Maybe you're right. There would be no big difference between somebody who breaks the rules today to enter a credit of his choice and somebody who would overstrech the meaning of a functional equivalent to get a credit entered.

But this does not speak against allowing functional equivalents.

No, you're blinders simply prevent you from seeing the difference.  When the Rules say list only those roles that match exactly to the roles listed in the crew table, any user AND the screeners can very quickly and easily verify whether the contribution is right or wrong.

This is simply impossible to do with functional equivalents and would allow far more incorrect contributions into the database because neither the voters (on balance) nor the screeners are going to take the time to research whether the credit being submitted really is a functional equivalent or not, even if there was actually a place to go to actually find this out.

I suggest that you be very careful crossing streets....since you cannot look either left or right! 

Agreed.  Functional equivalents would be chaos.  The dozen or so people who actually might know all these equivalents would be overwhelmed by those who don't...and I include myself in that majority.