Verifications by "associations"

[darian-parrish]

Since there is no existing DIP that discusses "associations" this is the start of the discussion.

Purpose: To make verifications on chain, transparent, automated, and informative. To be implement via a new primitive called "associations" which will decentralize the verification efforts across nodes and be more descriptive about what is being verified (ex: IsHuman, AttendedHarvard)

Requirements:

• Associations live on chain
• Associations can be augmented by any node
• Associations are descriptive

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Here are some relevant responses by Nader about associations from the BitClout FAQ Community Questions Section (https://docs.bitclout.com/faq/bitclout-faq)

When will verification and profile blocks move on chain and how will this work? (@itsaditya @tijn)
There is a PR to move blocks on chain that will be merged soonish. For verification, we have a proposal that we call "associations" that will allow any profile to "associate" with another profile, creating a directed graph of "associations." The blue checkmark on bitclout.com will then become a special case of this, as simply an association between a bitclout.com profile and a user, and each node will be able to provide its own blue checkmark via its own on-chain association.
This same primitive can also be used by universities or other credentialing authorities in the future as a means of doing cryptographically verifiable diplomas. This would cause BitClout to become a sort of "identity hub," and eat into the LinkedIn use-case.
But we need to write it up and run it by the community first :)

What criteria are or will be used for user verification as it seems inconsistent at times ? And will there be away to get verified without social profiles (@itsaditya @lukasjakson)
See my answer about "associations" previously. The long-term answer is that every node should do its own verification to avoid concentration, and this is precisely why bitclout.com verifications don't carry over to other nodes. Today, bitclout.com verifies users if they have a verified checkmark on Twitter, with very rare exceptions in cases where it looks like a user will add a lot of value to the community. Again, the long-term answer, though, is that no one entity has universal power over this, so that many different standards can compete.

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Prior discussion on verifications here: #49

Especially noteworthy comment by @kanshi