User:Jeblad/proven identity


 * A better name could be "trusted identity" as calculation will imply existence of a trust matrix.

A user can have proven identity through use of social media, by adding proofs for ownership of accounts. This can be done by adding posts that verify that they control the account. The reported identity, that is the full name, can then be provided as an alternate identification of the user.

The meaning of a proven identity is to give some assurance that the user is an unique person, and give some reference to who this person really is. This can then give some credibility to claims about an users background and education. It is important to distinguish between the digital person and the real person. The former may not give an accurate description of the real person, or it can even be another person or a made up person.

This solution makes it possible to prove common identity from a wiki, but it does not imply that the identified user on the external sites are in fact the claimed person. It will although create an identification of a digital person that may represent a real person.

Algorithm
The user prove itself on a social media site by posting a preformatted text. This text is provided on a special page, and the user will copy the text and paste it on a page or notice at the social media site. When the wiki detects the presence of the external text, and at a place that imply the user is in control of the correct account, then the user has proven his identity against the social media site.

When a user has proven his account against an external social media site, then the full name provided by the external site is added to the list of possible full names on the wiki. The full name will be given a trust calculated from the reach on the sites and the similarity of the names. By choosing a common name used on several sites, or a name from a large site, the trust for the name will be high. A name used on a site with few followers will similarly have a low trust.

A proven identity is placed in a special user group, which may not have any additional rights at all, but could be granted rights similar to autoconfirmed users.

A user should be autoconfirmed to be able to start the proving process. It could be an idea to use a special group "proveable", as this makes it possible to remove offending users from the group and thus blocking them from self assigning as a proven identity.

The proof process is run after each save action, and the result is displayed in a parser function