I agree with Monica's answer, saying this wasn't a technology question. It describes the user's end goal pretty well and doesn't ask for implementation details.

My goal is to encourage cross project contribution and usage. I'd like to provide a consistent profile that lets users show and add to their professional experience. [...] this would pull data from these profiles to create a reputation and experience dashboard.

That said, it ends rather poorly:

Has anyone seen such a thing?

This turns it into a "shopping"/recommendation question, and I believe this is where the red flags started waving.

Greg points out that his intent was to determine whether he needed to "go shopping", not to have others create a shopping list for him. I think Monica summarized it even better (and more broadly) in the comments:

It's asking about ways to bring disparate communities and identities together.

If this is truly the intent of the question, I believe a few minor edits will bring it out of the grey area it seems to be in right now.

To directly answer the question on whether we should allow "shopping questions": No*

The caveat is that Community Building is much less of a "only one answer can solve this" that other exchanges are. A question can be asked that lends itself to a list of products in the answer or across answers (disclosure: I answered the linked question). A question asking "Which product should I use to do X", would be off topic though. In this specific instance, despite the intent of the question, the closing question seems to have made it fall into this category.

I agree with Monica's answer, saying this wasn't a technology question. It describes the user's end goal pretty well and doesn't ask for implementation details.

My goal is to encourage cross project contribution and usage. I'd like to provide a consistent profile that lets users show and add to their professional experience. [...] this would pull data from these profiles to create a reputation and experience dashboard.

That said, it ends rather poorly:

Has anyone seen such a thing?

This turns it into a "shopping"/recommendation question, and I believe this is where the red flags started waving.

Greg points out that his intent was to determine whether he needed to "go shopping", not to have others create a shopping list for him. I think Monica summarized it even better (and more broadly) in the comments:

It's asking about ways to bring disparate communities and identities together.

If this is truly the intent of the question, I believe a few minor edits will bring it out of the grey area it seems to be in right now.

To directly answer the question on whether we should allow "shopping questions": No*

The caveat is that Community Building is much less of a "only one answer can solve this" that other exchanges are. A question can be asked that lends itself to a list of products in the answer or across answers (disclosure: I answered the linked question). A question asking "Which product should I use to do X", would be off topic though. In this specific instance, despite the intent of the question, the closing question seems to have made it fall into this category.

I agree with Monica's answer, saying this wasn't a technology question. It describes the user's end goal pretty well and doesn't ask for implementation details.

My goal is to encourage cross project contribution and usage. I'd like to provide a consistent profile that lets users show and add to their professional experience. [...] this would pull data from these profiles to create a reputation and experience dashboard.

That said, it ends rather poorly:

Has anyone seen such a thing?

This turns it into a "shopping"/recommendation question, and I believe this is where the red flags started waving.

Greg points out that his intent was to determine whether he needed to "go shopping", not to have others create a shopping list for him. I think Monica summarized it even better (and more broadly) in the comments:

It's asking about ways to bring disparate communities and identities together.

If this is truly the intent of the question, I believe a few minor edits will bring it out of the grey area it seems to be in right now.

To directly answer the question on whether we should allow "shopping questions": No*

The caveat is that Community Building is much less of a "only one answer can solve this" that other exchanges are. A question can be asked that lends itself to a list of products in the answer or across answers (disclosure: I answered the linked question). A question asking "Which product should I use to do X", would be off topic though. In this specific instance, despite the intent of the question, the closing question seems to have made it fall into this category.

I agree with Monica's answer, saying this wasn't a technology question. It describes the user's end goal pretty well and doesn't ask for implementation details.

My goal is to encourage cross project contribution and usage. I'd like to provide a consistent profile that lets users show and add to their professional experience. [...] this would pull data from these profiles to create a reputation and experience dashboard.

That said, it ends rather poorly:

Has anyone seen such a thing?

This turns it into a "shopping"/recommendation question, and I believe this is where the red flags started waving.

Greg points out that his intent was to determine whether he needed to "go shopping", not to have others create a shopping list for him. I think Monica summarized it even better (and more broadly) in the comments:

It's asking about ways to bring disparate communities and identities together.

If this is truly the intent of the question, I believe a few minor edits will bring it out of the grey area it seems to be in right now.

To directly answer the question on whether we should allow "shopping questions": No*

The caveat is that Community Building is much less of a "only one answer can solve this" that other exchanges are. A question can be asked that lends itself to a list of products in the answer or across answers (disclosure: I answered the linked question). A question asking "Which product should I use to do X", would be off topic though. In this specific instance, despite the intent of the question, the closing question seems to have made it fall into this category.