On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 5:05 AM, <wjhonson(a)aol.com> wrote:
When I signed up for Knol, one thing they did was
allow verification.
So one way to verify you was that you gave them a phone number and your
name as it was listed in the phone book. They check that it's really
there, they CALL you and give you a code. You have to type that code
back in.
So what that verifies is that whoever answered the phone at that number
was the same person who asked them to call that name and number (listed
in the phone book) in the first place. I'd call that *fairly good*
verification. Not perfect, but at least it pins the typist down to a
particular phone number and phone book listing.
At any rate, I don't see how a 50-word biography which could be
anything I choose to make up, would satisfy any kind of identify
verification. To be an *Editor* that ask that you submit a CV which I
suppose if you were so inclined you could check against some college
database or whatever.
They've had some discussion on the CZ forum about the onerousness of
the sign-up process before, and in addition to rejections, they have
quite a few where they basically write back, "we need more
information, because we don't have enough to verify your identity".
Most of those people never get back to them, from what I gather.
CZ sign-up is slightly problematic for people without institutional
email addresses, but they place a high premium on better verification
than just 'fairly good'. In part, I think this is because they
really, really want to avoid letting any vandals through; the lack of
that particular aspect of Wikipedia is a major selling point for many
of their users and potential users.
A related observation: presumably because of the delayed sign-up
process, only about half of new users ever make a first edit on CZ:
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Image:New_users.png
-Sage
(User:Ragesoss)