Hey everyone!
I have been frequenting the "new" section of posts for a couple of days now and I am sure many at #doyourpart have too. Like many others I had a lot of friends sign up and some of them are using it actively already. One thing that does slightly bother me is when unverified accounts hug all the real ones and makes it hard for readers to find them when browsing the #introduceyourself tag.
Now I don't want to say that you HAVE to verify your account, but considering you are tagging it as #introduceyourself it would be highly appropriate to verify it, plus its a win-win for both readers and writers:
-Readers don't have to be "oh no, this one looks like a fake account again, ugh, I'll switch tag..."
-Writers don't have to be "oh no, what did my post do wrong? no one is voting for it..."
Reasons why people create fake accounts:
-quick profit (they hope to get really lucky and hit big upvotes, hope no one finds out (remember the internet is big and deep) until they can cash it out, get SteemPower which probably will be abused more in the future)
-long term profit (even though they abuse the system, they still believe in Steem and its success, SP accumulates, etc)
So preventing these users is the one of the reasons for verification.
What verifying your account isn't:
-adding a steemit logo with photoshop/paint/similar in the background of a picture (this can be done with any picture) and shouldn't be used as verification.
-You don't HAVE to hold a paper with steemit on it, but its one of the most accessible ways to do it quickly (if you are editing your introduction post)
-adding tons of sources from other social platforms (if you in this case verify there, that works too, (example you are mostly active on twitter, you could tweet: "Doing an introduction post on Steemit, or something similar")) but if Steemit isn't mentioned anywhere there, that is also easy just to copy links of someone else and post them here
-You don't have to take personal pictures of yourself or others/other things that disclose information about you, your account here can remain anonymous if you want it to be
What verifying is:
-proving that the person you are portraying to be, is the one posting on said account
-extra trust
What this prevents, which I think would be the worst case scenario, is imagining someone signing up for Steemit some day, about to post their first blog, and they would realize through the tags that someone else has been pretending to be them for all the time she didn't know this site existed.
Thanks for reading! Would love to hear some more ideas about successfully verifying your account without doing it the "default" way of holding a piece of paper and taking a selfie.
Will give out 1 Steem to some of the best ideas!
Edit: sending steem to some of the suggestions/discussions!