Oddbean

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 agree

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 As a newcomer I found it confusing. Though maybe the concept of verification could be emulated with a competing set of verifiers that the client chooses to adhere to 🤔

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 I still like the idea of badges for those who have earned them through tasks at live events 

Or badges for people who zap others a lot and participate in the economy 

I think we should look to the boyscouts to see what they do- I’ve never been a part of that cult (😂 /s), but they probably have some good ideas

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 Nice idea, but the problem here is the "value" of the badges. It is necessary bounded to whom create them, they are just a passthrough, so we are falling back to the Web of Trust.

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 If you make them assigned to tasks it’s a protocol 

Like being an only-zaps person makes you cooler idc 

There should be a special only-zaps relay

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 Someone has to sign the badge; the protocol cannot do it alone. So this “someone” gives trust/value to the badge.

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 A certain amount of witnesses could sign? I’m sure enough thought could be given to it for a work around 

How does it work in the Scouts?

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 I think decentralized verification, based on any criteria verifiers decide, should indeed be based on a badge-like mechanism, but it probably should rely on a separate NIP and different event kinds.

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 The whole concept of "verification" is bound to centralized structures, it should be buried. Self-verification is a state of mind. Instead, verifying someone/something else is a matter of active experience and interactions, which minimize the trust factor. Of course technology helps, but also WoT needs to be verified and not blindly trusted. "Proof of work" means taking responsibility for everything we care about, exactly like we do (should do) in real life.

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 There is no way I can fathom doing it without trusted parties, sure. I guess I haven't truly embreced the philosophy already but hypothetically, community bound verifications, though trust reliant could be put in place if desired

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 I understand, it is not easy. The good news is that these trusted parties can be collaborative and self-monitored: peer reviewed algo within peer reviewed platforms. But we must always keep an open eye on our verification attitude.

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 > The whole concept of "verification" is bound to centralized structures, it should be buried.

It doesn't have to be. There can be multiple verifiers and a single pubkey can be verified by many of them. If among the verifiers that verify me there is at least one which is included in your trusted list, your client should show me as verified.
This would be a level of decentralization similar to that of relays (in the inbox model).

The issue with NIP-05, if it were a verification system (it's not), would be that an account can only be "verified" by one "verifier". So an account would have to pick just one and you'd be forced to "trust" any widely used one (if you want to rely on verification at all), leading to centralization.