Nah it was not good. Domain names already do that and are accessible to all at all times with full transparency and decentralization. Bluesky is literally regressing.
Even mastodon’s verification system is better than checkmarks.
“Everyone should be able to setup their own domain and mess with DNS records to get a verified account”
Do you realize how utterly disconnected from reality this sounds?? Technical people that have absolutely not clue on how make good UX for end users is how we got Mastodon in the first place, and why its adoption is abysmal.
The id.au domain name you choose must match or be an acronym or abbreviation of your first name or family name, or your nickname
you have to provide ID to register any .au, so you’re verified as a person, and though they don’t pre-check your nickname, AFAIK if there’s a complaint you do have to prove that you’re “known by” that name
Far from perfect, but I think it’s good to have a layer that very visibly shows ‘yes, this is the account you want’.
Domains are a worthwhile addition, but they run into almost the same problem as usernames and handles. Can be made misleading easily - sure, I could often go to the web address and verify it (if they don’t put up a convincing fake site), but that’s much lower visibilty.
Eg, you can probably register [email protected] or similar and get it by some folks just as easily as registering the Twitter handle. There’s a payment step to get the domain, but that’s about it.
The centralization problem you mention is a good point though. It was a fine system, if you felt like you could trust Twitter as a verifier. Today obviously, one could not. But Bsky seems to at least theoretically have a ‘choose your verification provider’ idea in mind, which would (again theoretically) resolve a lot of that issue.
Nah it was not good. Domain names already do that and are accessible to all at all times with full transparency and decentralization. Bluesky is literally regressing.
Even mastodon’s verification system is better than checkmarks.
“Everyone should be able to setup their own domain and mess with DNS records to get a verified account”
Do you realize how utterly disconnected from reality this sounds?? Technical people that have absolutely not clue on how make good UX for end users is how we got Mastodon in the first place, and why its adoption is abysmal.
domain names do that for people with well known domain names, and verification processes do that for people without
Yup. Need something like EV certs to really verify… And that would only make sense if it’s a “no (non-real) screennames” kind of thing.
i think the .id.au domain licensing rules are a pretty reasonable middle-ground:
https://www.auda.org.au/au-domain-names/the-different-au-domain-names/id-au-domain-names/
you have to provide ID to register any .au, so you’re verified as a person, and though they don’t pre-check your nickname, AFAIK if there’s a complaint you do have to prove that you’re “known by” that name
Far from perfect, but I think it’s good to have a layer that very visibly shows ‘yes, this is the account you want’.
Domains are a worthwhile addition, but they run into almost the same problem as usernames and handles. Can be made misleading easily - sure, I could often go to the web address and verify it (if they don’t put up a convincing fake site), but that’s much lower visibilty.
Eg, you can probably register [email protected] or similar and get it by some folks just as easily as registering the Twitter handle. There’s a payment step to get the domain, but that’s about it.
The centralization problem you mention is a good point though. It was a fine system, if you felt like you could trust Twitter as a verifier. Today obviously, one could not. But Bsky seems to at least theoretically have a ‘choose your verification provider’ idea in mind, which would (again theoretically) resolve a lot of that issue.