Re: Meronymity

I believe the *concept* is the point, vs any specific implementation
details.


On Sun, Apr 21, 2024 at 10:54 AM Adrian Gropper <agropper@healthurl.com>
wrote:

> I don't see how this reputation system is resistant to Sybil attacks.
> Also, it's not clear if:
>
> "LiTweeture then posts the query and meronyms to X and Mastodon."
>
> implies some centralization.
>
> Adrian
>
> On Sun, Apr 21, 2024 at 1:34 PM Kim Hamilton <kimdhamilton@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I think this is a brilliant use of VCs and DIDs. And mailing lists like
>> this are good examples of where social inhibitions/fear of judgment keep
>> people from asking questions or engaging (at least anecdotally, as people
>> report to me). How much more productive would we be collectively if this
>> were less of a factor?
>>
>> It would be fun to sketch this out more. Sounds like a great RWOT topic
>> as well
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 21, 2024 at 9:47 AM Steven Rowat <steven_rowat@sunshine.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Greetings CCG,
>>>
>>> From my reading of a recent techxplore story, the 'meronymity' devised
>>> by "MIT researchers" (and apparently the Allen Institute) may be an
>>> innovation of interest to many in this group. It attempts to solve the
>>> problem that anonymity, desired for good reasons often, precludes knowing
>>> the credentials of the participants, and hence brings trust and accuracy
>>> problems.
>>>
>>> https://techxplore.com/news/2024-04-equitable-discussions-social-media-meronymity.html
>>>
>>> From the story:
>>>
>>> "Meronymity (from the Greek words for "partial" and "name") allows
>>> people in a public discussion space to selectively reveal only relevant,
>>> verified aspects of their identity."
>>>
>>> The story goes on to describe an implementation with academics, and the
>>> results. It does seem to have had a noticeable positive impact. They go on
>>> to say:
>>>
>>> "Now that they have built a framework around academia, the researchers
>>> want to apply meronymity to other online communities and general social
>>> media conversations, especially those around issues where there is a lot of
>>> conflict, like politics."
>>>
>>> It appears that some form of verifiable credentials is used, but whether these are W3C-compliant ones, and involved DIDs, I'm not sure. I did a quick scan through the pre-print paper the story is based on (available through the above link, at the end), and couldn't see any direct reference to them.
>>>
>>> If not, IMO this might be a good place for W3C VCs and DIDs to be involved. Hence this post. :-)
>>>
>>> Steven Rowat
>>>
>>>