[OSM-talk] Summary of the irc meeting.

[Lars Aronsson]

Tom Carden wrote:

> Yes, and I can pay to be a member twice, etc. etc.
> 
> How do you prove that two people aren't the same online... IP address?

It's actually very simple.  You ask everybody to provide some 
proof of their unique existence, their identity, and if none of 
the other members complain, they're in.

I can assure you that I, Tommy Persson, and Erik Johansson exist, 
and are different individuals.  If that isn't good enough, I can 
put some effort into providing better proof.

> (I have access to 5 or 6 easily, around 100 without too much trouble)
> Email address? (same as IP), make them report to a chat on IRC? (one
> per IP is easy), etc. etc.

I'm personally convinced that tom-carden.co.uk and Steve 
"asklater" Coast are two different people.  While it would be 
theoretically possible for one person to fake these dual 
identities, the effort would be far greater than the benefit.

The real problem arises when a person wants to be a voting member 
*and* be anonymous.  I couldn't tolerate that.  If they want to be 
anonymous, they can be a paying but non-voting member.

As for the initial vote and counting the registered user names, it 
can be important that we don't call them members before they have 
asked to be members.  The communist party might want me as a 
member, but I don't want to be called a member of the communist 
party.  We could call the registered users "eligible" or 
"potential members".


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se