Are you familiar with Twitter and Facebook's use of blue checkboxes for "verified" accounts? Are you discussing something similar to that?
It could visually be similar, but I'm mostly interesting in similar functionality. It would be similar in that it would only be some users that would have an identified (verified) account. It would be different in that the users themselves would be able to do the necessary actions to make their accounts identified (verified).
Sure. A relatively easy option for "identifying" users, which has been
discussed previously, is requiring the use of a credit card or a phone number in order to edit. These types of proposals have not been popular.
Yes, there are several systems we could use, but I would rather only use systems that allow highly trustworthy authentication.
Proof of control over a specific account on Twitter or Facebook can be used as a less trustworthy authentication, that is proof of authorization to use an account, but that won't imply identification.
The three point are not about identification, but about identifiers and how to use them. Nice ideas, but outside the scope of my question. Tagging of roles is also outside the scope of my question.
On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 4:17 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
John Erling Blad wrote:
In some cases it would be a lot easier and/or better if it was possible to identify and not just authenticate an user. This could include such things as turning on real name for identified users, or limiting elevated rights to them, thereby avoiding renomination of banned users.
Are you familiar with Twitter and Facebook's use of blue checkboxes for "verified" accounts? Are you discussing something similar to that?
In a lot of countries it is now possible to get access to systems with highly trustworthy identification. This is at least possible in several European countries, and I bet it will be quite common in the coming years.
Sure. A relatively easy option for "identifying" users, which has been discussed previously, is requiring the use of a credit card or a phone number in order to edit. These types of proposals have not been popular.
There's also https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Identification_noticeboard, which has a somewhat interesting implementation and execution history.
For users who are well-known public figures, we have OTRS or Twitter or Facebook, where people can send an e-mail or make a post to cross-reference their accounts/identities.
Some pros;
- reclaiming user accounts would be somewhat easier
- real names could be used (no impersonation)
- user verification of various public departments
- proofs of identity for copyright claims
I've said this previously elsewhere, but I think the focus should be on:
- supporting case-insensitive user names, so that "Brian" and "BRIAN" are the same when logging in;
- supporting display name configuration, so that user "__bradley__" can be referred to as such in page histories and elsewhere; and
- supporting self-renames, so that it doesn't require another user to change your username, which is just crazy.
I see a lot more to gain from these features than I do from focusing on identification.
There have also been thoughts around affiliations and groups and better supporting those within MediaWiki. Currently, people often have a personal wiki account and an "official" wiki account, but managing the two can be difficult and tedious. Instead, you could have a way for users to join, for example, the group "Wikimedia Deutschland" and tag their contributions as being part of that group, instead of having "User:Herman" and "User:Herman (WMDE)" wiki accounts. GitHub does this pretty well.
MZMcBride
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe