I had thought a while ago about attempting to start a mainstream public forum that required real verification of it’s participants for purposes of context.
He’s had it with trolls, and is toning down his (awesome) usage of Twitter.
This really underscores that identity matters. We’ve seen this in the move to verified twitter accounts, facebook as a whole (and somewhat wrt their vanity urls coming out).
My identity online, like most, is a conglomeration of profiles and activity on a dozen different sites. I can’t easily and don’t often write long form like this, but my activity stream on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, HackerNews, etc. all add up to a very clear picture of who I am.
We’re on the cusp of being able to integrate the online identity to make conversations more valuable. Trent wants to be able to know if someone is a real drummer or cardiologist in order to have a discussion with them. I totally understand that. I have conversations on Hacker News all the time because the people there are just so smart, and verifiable. I know Paul Buchheit, Joshua Schachter, Fred Wilson, Paul Graham, etc. are who they say they are there.
