Gergo,
In response to some discussion, I now consider there to be two distinct topics: (1) MediaWiki software should provide configurable OpenID Connect features for account verification and account linking, (2) Wikipedia should utilize and configure such features at all, in a certain way or have a certain policy. With respect to topic one, MediaWiki software, there are dozens of projects at and outside of the Wikimedia Foundation which utilize MediaWiki software. There is also an OpenID Connect extension: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:OpenID_Connect . With respect to topic two, Wikipedia, account verification features and resultant options and tools for administrators mitigate a number of problems, including but not limited to: sockpuppetry [1][2][3], multiple accounts [4], conflict of interest editing [5][6], advocacy editing [7], propaganda [8], bots [9], griefing [10], trolling [11], spamming, vandalism [12], fake news [13][14], misinformation [13][14] / disinformation [14], political manipulation and election interference. While data is scarce with regard to the number of occurrences of each on Wikipedia, we can see that the administrative processes of mitigating sockpuppetry, for instance, are costly and continual, investigations occurring daily [3]. To indicate the importance of the problems listed above, I am searching for more Wikimedia Foundation materials [14]. Thank you for the hyperlinks. Those interested in the future of credentials technology might find the W3C Credentials Community Group interesting (https://www.w3.org/community/credentials/). Best regards, Adam [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_sock_puppetry [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy#Using_multiple_accounts [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing_on_Wikipedia [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Advocacy [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Propaganda [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bot_policy [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Griefing [11] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_is_a_troll%3F [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism [13] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/07/17/misinformation-fake-news-censorship/ [14] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Sources/Considering_2030:_Misinformation,_verification,_and_propaganda ________________________________ From: Wikitech-l <[email protected]> on behalf of Gergo Tisza <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, May 8, 2018 6:33:24 AM To: Wikimedia developers Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki and OpenID Connect On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 10:21 PM Adam Sobieski <[email protected]> wrote: > In the scenario, after choosing to verify their name on their Wikipedia > account, a user logs onto Wikipedia and uses OpenID Connect to link their > Wikipedia account to multiple verified accounts, for example their Facebook > and LinkedIn accounts. At the end of the process, we can envision the user > obtaining a checkmark next to their full name on Wikipedia, their real name > and a verification icon appearing next to their edits and on their user > page. There might even be, per user settings, hyperlinks to their Facebook > and LinkedIn pages on their Wikipedia user page. With such features, we can > envision allowing groups of users or admins to determine that certain > articles require a verified account to edit. > There has been a fair amount of discussion (mainly after the Essjay affair) on verified expert accounts on English Wikipedia, but ultimately the idea has been rejected. You can read about it at [1]. As others have noted, account linking is a fairly minor convenience for having verified real-life identities; if there was any intent to make that happen it would have happened regardless of software support. Having non-public account linking (as an antispam measure that has better user experience than captchas) is a more feasible idea IMO; I wrote some thoughts on that at [2]. If you just want public links to verified accounts in MediaWiki (as opposed to Wikipedia / other Wikimedia projects), there is nothing stopping you; you should propose a patch to the OpenID Connect maintainer (all it takes is probably just adding a hook such as GetPreferences to display the information at the appropriate place) or write your own extension. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:There_is_no_credential_policy [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Tgr_(WMF)/external_login _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
