@RGJ Thanks for the feedback, but if you can clarify these points I’ve put here, I’d be happy for further feedback.
- So the “verified” mark could easily be done with a group “Verified” which has avatar flair, and links in the profile could be done using this Link custom user field to external website
- Yes, exactly. That’s right. That’s what I thought. I accessed this post and found it very interesting, it was exactly what I thought, but with the difference that it does not have the “verified” icon.
- But I don’t see how adding links to a profile would help verifying someones identity. I could take Elon Musks profile pic and link to x.com from my profile and then you would think that I’m Elon Musk?
- If you don’t have a good process for this, then it’s useless (and maybe even dangerous since people will hold the community leadership responsible).
Initial observations
- Hope to help resolve these general considerations you mentioned or general issues you mentioned.
- Part of the things I’ve listed are additional ideas that can solve these initial problems:
- Not everyone can be verified, only specific people can be verified. This includes community team members or selected or invited users. User profile links are just a part of this verification process, another verification process would be the statistics information that I mentioned, in addition there is the issue of badges that the user must have, in addition to other criteria, for example, if the user wants to have a verified profile it would be necessary for him/her to have these characteristics: statistical information, official profile links attached, badges, to be selected to have a verified profile, or to have been a member of the community team for that.
- If you include a link that is unofficial, your profile will be shut down. That is, you lose access to having the profile verified. Companies like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook already have clear processes for the person to have a verified profile. What I said earlier would be that we can build something that exists and adapt it to the needs of the community. For example, we can review the verified profile policy of these social networks and adapt to Discourse if that is interesting and good for everyone here.
- Verified profiles can be from the community team, artists, journalists, people who have some ties to an IT company. If you are not in this category, you could not have a verified profile. What we can discuss at this point is which people would have this profile verified and how to establish clear and interesting criteria for this to be done. As I said, this process is still under construction and I think it would be interesting to ask for the opinion of more people, so that we have different points of view and that way we know if this resource is interesting or not. As I said before, this can somehow help Discourse to be more reliable, secure, transparent. I have a feeling this idea is a good one but needs to be evaluated by everyone here at Discourse.
- I’m not criticizing you, I just wanted to show you additional ideas I got from reading your feedback. About the user profile links, they serve as a guide - I access the links and I know if that person claims to be who they are, is really who they say they are, because the links in theory direct to what the person wants to show for me. Even if there is some wrong link or wrong information, the community itself can send a request like “this user cannot have a verified profile, the information is wrong”. When there is a fake profile that is considered a verified profile, Twitter users themselves can report this profile, as this profile is fake. Also, people who want to have a verified profile often follow social media or even community policies for doing so. It makes no sense for you to want to have a fake profile verified, because one time or another they can find out and you lose access to that profile. Ideally, I believe there are more good people in the world who actually do what is good and help those who need help.
- We can establish a criterion or acceptance level for this, as I mentioned earlier, invited people or selected people from the community can have a verified profile, maybe we can better evaluate this, with a test period, for example, evaluate for 1 year if that person deserves to have a verified profile. Or else we can just leave the verified profile just for the community team. Also, the person must be committed to the terms of security, privacy of the community in which they are inserted or wish to take part in order to have the possibility of having a verified profile.