Steemit Account Verification Proposal
The Need for Account Verification
Have you ever read a post and wanted to learn more about the author and their background?
Currently you must scour through the author's blog to see if they have written an 'introduceyourself' post, often times leaving you empty handed. A simple account verification system that allows users to link their steemit account with other social networking accounts (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn...) as well as their personal websites would alleviate this issue and also help to promote steemit through other social networking platforms.
Originally I was going to attempt to create such a system and integrate it with steemit; however, I simply don't have the time and thus I am sharing the idea with the community on the chance that someone else may wish to do so.
The Design
When viewing an author's page a verifications tab would be added below their user name. Clicking on this link would either take you to a page displaying the users verified accounts and websites, or if you are logged in it will take you to a page where you can update your own verifications. See below...
Above: All users visiting the verification page are now able to navigate directly to the author's other social networking pages and personal websites in order to obtain a better picture of the author.
Above: The logged in user can add new accounts and websites as well as update existing verifications.
How Would Verification Work?
Adding/Updating a Social Network Account verification
The user should be taken to a page or be presented with a modal overlay that outlines the process for verifying the account for the specific network in question. The most effective way to verify a third party account is to have the user make a post that verifies their steemit user name. For example the post might read:
Verifying my account @mynameisbrian on steemit.com. Come join me!
The exact format for this post should be dictated by the system, or added directly by the system with the users permission. Once the post has been added the system should 1) verify the presence of the post, and 2) verify that the user name included in the post matches that of the logged in steemit user.
Account verifications serve 2 purposes, they allow steemit users to learn more about the author and they promote steemit through the user's social connections on other networks.
Adding/Updating a Website verification
The process for verifying a website would be similar to verifying an account, but instead of a post a meta tag or file could be added to the site indicating that it belongs to the author. There are many possible ways to verify a website.
A benefit of website verifications is that the user could verify that they are in fact the owner of content they are posting on steemit to avoid being accused of plagiarism.
Just an idea
That is the basic idea I had for an account verification system integrated within steemit.com. Obviously there are many details that are not entirely worked out such as how a user's verified accounts and sites should be tracked and stored. If the system were to be integrated directly into the steemit.com website writing the verifications as meta data within the user's account would be a possibility, or perhaps each record of a verification could be saved as a blog post. If the system is completely external some sort of database would be required to ensure reliability as performing verifications in real-time is not feasible given limitations in the api's of other social networks.
So what are your thoughts on this idea?
Would it be beneficial to the user experience and help to promote steemit?
If anyone is interested in taking on the project and would like to discuss please feel free to get in touch.
