I remember you and a couple of other panelists at Writers Weekend last year explaining that claiming RWA pro status in a query letter was tantamount to saying "I am unpublished *and* don't know much about the industry" unless there were the publication (or *really* good contest) credits to go with it.

I can sort of understand why they do it. But I think SFWA's pro definition is a lot more useful to me in terms of measuring how I'm doing. (Even if they *did* put the rate up to 5c/word just before I sold a couple of stories that would have made the 3c mark had they been the right genre.:-)