dalekcoffee
commented
1 year ago I would love verification to assign a role maybe, but creating arbitrary authorities already exists.
Literally just make your own official website or blog. Copy and paste the Rel=me to it. Bam verified.
You have verified your identity in the fediverse AND created a place for people to find your public brand.
Anyone famous has websites they can use or reference if they felt like it and only they (or their team) can create this verification to this site. Whereas an authority that needs to do all the verifying could be more easily tricked.
These central authorities also need manpower to process these verifications, we have to think about who will pay these people to do this.
Its just really not needed, and Elon did a fantastic job at monetizing something you weren't supposed to be able to buy
Pitch
A central body ran by the Mastodon non-profit that verifies users. Due to the de-centralised nature of Mastodon the recognition of this authority would be opt-in per user / per server and if opt'd-out a user would not see verification badges given by the non-profit. As well as that, all verifications should be shown on the website in a downloadable a dynamic CSV file showing what body / person is being verified under what account (usernames change, maybe a different ID). Also, there should be a feature that would allow other people to make their own verification bodies in which people can opt-in to with their own badges, you could hypothetically opt-in to different multiple authorities at once.
Motivation
Safety of users, prevention of misinformation, makes famous people more comfortable to join the platform