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.
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.
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.