On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 5:05 AM, wjhonson@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)