The cryptotoken world is rife with scams and ponzis and services that are aimed at taking advantage of others--even when those same people who orchestrated the scams were known to others. Paycoin, anyone?
There are several points that I would like to make.
No way exists to stop you making as many accounts as you want that are 'verified'. In addition, once an account is 'verified' it could be sold (along with the image).
I'm not saying that you would, just that it is possible.
Furthermore, you also have not indicated what documentation is necessary for verification. This could be a phishing operation to obtain users' private details that could then be used for other fraudulent purposes.
What about companies that want to verify that are owned by users (potentially by multiple people) and used to create a veil through the corporation? What is the policy for that, if any? If there is no policy for corporations, then you are leaving out a large segment of potential users who cannot be verified. However, if you allow for corporations to identify, what type of information will be required beyond what is searchable from governmental databases?
Finally, there is also no indication how much this service is going to cost (if at all), and it would be nice to see this clarified.
Now, with that said, I am not accusing anyone of anything but think it's prudent that people should be warned of any and all potential issues. I do not necessarily think your intentions are malicious and probably are not.
This is a soft-verification model. We use the same techniques that Steem Cleaner team use to verify original content creators. As far as phishing operation, these are the standard verification tools used on Steemit since it's launch, that happen everyday in the comment sections across this site. This service simply provides an option for people not wishing to put their personal details on the block chain in such a manner.
It can also serve as a repository for the usernames of individuals who've taken the time to verify.
The evidence required to verify will depend on the claims being made by the steemit user. Verification can take place through photos (The old photo-holding-a-sign), or through disclosure of a personal website, blog, or shout outs on social media accounts. This is nothing new. The only new addition are badges, that can be a quick and fun indicator to tell if a user has been verified.
It also allows users to be proactive about verification before they can be accused of fraud, which can be very unsettling to new users.
Whatever reason it won't let me format with quotes so I'm responding with answers to your points.
1.] I couldn’t agree more. You state the Paycoin as the prime example and you are correct to do so.
2.] The “selling account” aspect could be one that is hard to track. Unless, we have it where the person has to know secret behind the code ( assuming he/she sends it along upon selling the account ) behind the badge ( which is how it works ) , or do very much sign-keys blockchain type mechanism. We are already talking about better ways to do things also.
3.] I get where you are coming from.
4.] We are going to do another follow-up post explain what is needed. We figured by dropping into the chat, or via email you would get an answer this way also, but you are right. We need to clearly state this.
5.] There will be more coming up in a follow-up post, but the early answer is we aren’t equipped for this yet. We’ll ramp up to better handle this when it does come about.
6.] We really appreciate the feedback. The more the better. We are going to build a follow-up post with a FAQ this weekend to better clarified some of the issues you raised along with some others mentioned.
I’d like to be clear. This isn’t supposed to be 100% proof as nothing is, BUT we like to think of it as a ‘soft verification’ , or a ‘trust leg’ to get the conversation started and establish some best practices on how we can get people into the trust economy ,but keep their Identity protected. We are glad to engage in this discussion! We are also building the website. More to come and thank you!
Thanks for the reply.
Also, I know that @ned and the Steemit team have been looking at verification solutions as well.
I'm sure they are happy to see other users work on this in a decentralized fashion.
It'd be also nice to see what sort of other legal protections can be given to other users if they provide you with documentation of their identities and what legal means you are doing for collecting these documents.
Can you track or be notified if a password changes on an account? If so that is a signal that the account has changed hands and needs to be reverified. Also could have an expiry date, that all accounts need to be reverified after 3 months or 6 months.
Is there a way you can host the image and then have the image connected to the link switch after expiry to say "verification expired", when reverified it gets restored back to original verified image. Url must stay constant, only image switches.
Lastly, charge 5$ per verification to make your project sustainable longterm and keep you involved.
@steemdrive good suggestion. There should be a way to figure something out like this. Good thinking on that aspect of things. Expiration for re-verification is a good idea.
These are all very good points and I wish I had more to add to the methodology/concerns side of the conversation.
On the user retention side of things, the idea of being able to verify proactively, even if the goal isn't anonymity, does seem very important. Especially with intro posts commonly not being first posts any longer. While I understand exactly where the community members are coming from when asking others to verify, being burned countless times has made the way it's sometimes being asked somewhat harsh, even when not intended. This easily start a new user off on the wrong foot.
I've personally worked with users in the steemprentice group on getting them verified in a manner that the community and the user are comfortable with. Having a service to direct them to when some degree of anonymity is desired takes a sometimes time consuming task off my, and I'm sure others, plate.
While I'm excited to see how the dev teams implements verification in the future, in my eyes we can't just wait for that, especially considering a week on Steemit feels like a month. Personally I'm all for groups finding intermediate (even if imperfect) solutions to implement and refine. If someone finds it's inadequate and makes a better one...all the better for the community.
In my opinion Steemit NEEDS such imperfect solutions; Robinhood Whale, Project Curie, MinnowsUnite, SteemSquad, Steemprentice, ProjectNewbie...all mid term solutions that in many's eyes are necessary to deal with where the site is right now, while we wait for the long term solution of the dev team.