Implementing Verification as a function of a Labelling Service

[lukeacl]

Verification has been discussed over and over and the general consensus is that it shouldn't be centralised to one organisation. Currently Labellers are being used to tag all sorts of content or label users for different behaviours, surely we can use them so that anyone can set up a Verification Labeller of sorts, that person/organisation is then able to use their own methods to verify the user, then apply the label to confirm it. Clients could then be modified to listen for a label of a particular type or value "verified-user" etc, then show a text badge, or even better/small, an icon/pictograph based badge tied to the labeller.

This approach allows users to subscribe to multiple verification labellers depending on their needs. Bluesky could run their own to badge their staff so Paul can finally look like a member of the team with his domain. Governments or representative bodies could run their own so that you can personally identify yourself using regional identification etc. It could get messy if I subscribe to multiple verification labellers, but that's up to me as a user to keep it as empty or busy as I need.

Just some thoughts, cooking a little. Wanted to open the discussion on the matter in this direction.

This suggestion covers changes to the lexicon, but also changes to the main Bluesky app, so I'll house it under lexicon to start with as that'll be where I suspect it could start.