Users are able to create public accounts. These have public names, messaging keys for those names, and data related to those names. Privacy concerns aside, (for the time being,) what role do you see the public account having in the network?
Maintaining a single identity between blogs, social media, and forums?
A name under which to publicize any and all content creation?
A public name for your inbox?
Public Site/APP curator/admin/developer?
Representative face for your company?
Short bio giving your background/profile?
Reputation ranking?
Something else?
Anyone can say “Well, it’s your name, of course!” Well…
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
People use all kinds of aliases on forums, YouTube and reddit etc so it would be good to have the same possibility on the SAFE network. It can even be several aliases connected to a single SAFE account for convenience. The aliases should be untraceable to the accounts so that anonymity is preserved.
Generally what comes to mind when I think of a “Public Account” is a general purpose identity to be used with the general public. “Blindsite” is one such name for me, an identity that I use with the public and post frequently with. It isn’t trusted with major secret information (that is I wouldn’t post anything majorly secret with it) but it also acts as a cover for my identity from the general public for the most part. Though by no means is this perfect or secure. Now on SAFE things would be a bit different as 1. You can create multiple identities with ease and 2. You kind of need to maintain a level of security culture otherwise all the coding is useless. Public names can be all of those things but then any name can be all of those things.
I think there should be an app that connects various public username functions. That is a public id could be just a name, it could also be linked to a reputation system, it could also become a brand, it could also be a name to publicize under. Keep things modular. Just because you post on SAFEbook as “The Blob of Bloody Doom” doesn’t mean you want to market yourself to your customers like that.
The idea of a public persona is about use in online communities like forums etc, I use m3data as a public persona in various ways and I see certain attributes being connected with it. On SAFE the aspects that you mentioned in OP @smacz are definitely relevant. Guess it does depend on the level of “anonymity” one is looking for online. Some people want to remain anonymous and have a public persona not connected in any way to the physical self, such as dissidents, activists and journalist sharing and discussing ideas.
Public personas for work profiles (such as linkedin, job sites). Education where qualifications, skills or knowledge need to be validated and connected to the physical self.
We are fleshing out the dynamics of persona trees in metame.
Seed persona: this is primarily for identity verification purposes and connecting info accumulated in personal data vault. For insight, sharing, sale.
Additional personas: profiles you can use on the social features of metame. For gaining reputation in communities you create and/or join whether on metame or other SAFE apps. Personas for family, friends, work, journalism etc
Additional personas can be made public if users chooses.
Seed persona is for utmost privacy. Other personas cannot be connected back to seed.