zlacker

>The obvious problem is we don’t have any great alternatives.

There's always identity based network of trust. Several other members vouch for new people to be included.

>>coldte+(OP)
Maybe even push that a level higher and have org to org vouching as well (so it can scale and reputation propagates social bubbles.) Bootstrapping remains somewhat an issue.

>>coldte+(OP)
I've mentioned a "market of lemons" elsewhere in this thread. One such market is the market for malware and stolen credit card details. One result of the market being broken: serious criminals restrict themselves to very small (company like) social circles and invite only forums. One signal of trust that remained very long: a very short ICQ number. You don't want to burn such a handle with a bad trade, so trust was given upfront.

>>eterna+W2
One somewhat popular solution for bootstrapping is to allow people to buy in, paired with quickly banning those members in cases of rule violation. It's by no means perfect, but it puts a real price on abuse and thus reduces it a lot

>>coldte+(OP)
How would you imagine that applying here? If fake accounts are at least as convincing as real ones, then it seems like trust networks would be quickly prone to corruption as the fake accounts gain enough of a foothold to start recommending each other.

>>wpietr+wv
On a network started by 2-3-10 people, the first new members would need to be vouched by a percentage of those to get in - and so on.

If someone down the line does some BS activity, the accounts that vouched for it have their reputation on the line.

A whole tree of the person who did the BS and 1-2 layers of vouching above gets put on check, gets big red warning label in their UI presence (e.g. under their avatar/name), and loses privileges. It could even just get immediately deleted.

And since I said "identity based", you would need to provide to real world id to get in, on top of others vouching for you. It can be made so you wouldn't be able to get a fake account any easier than you can get a fake passport.

>>coldte+fn1
Are you talking about in-person verification and vouching? Or can it be digitally mediated?

If the former, it looks quite impractical unless there are widely trusted bulk verifiers. E.g., state DMVs.

If the latter, then it all looks quite prone to corruption once bots become as convincing correspondents as the median person.

>>wpietr+PY3
>Are you talking about in-person verification and vouching? Or can it be digitally mediated?

Yes and yes.

>If the former, it looks quite impractical unless there are widely trusted bulk verifiers. E.g., state DMVs.

It's happened already in some cases, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-name_system

>If the latter, then it all looks quite prone to corruption once bots become as convincing correspondents as the median person

How about a requirement to personally know the other person in what hackers in the past called "meatspace"?

Just brainstorming here, but for a cohesive forum, even of tens of thousands of people, it shouldn't be that difficult to achieve.

For something Facebook / Tweeter scale it would take "bulk verifiers" that are trusted, and where you need to register in person.