http://www.gen2phen.org/researcher-identification/researcher-identification-primer/tying-it-all-together

http://www.gen2phen.org/researcher-identification/comment/14

I couldn’t agree with you more about the linking-up aspect of things, I am myself very optimistic of OpenID being the big enabler here.

You are right that a lot of the stuff we want to link up is indeed public. BUT, I think one of the commenters above is right in that there are a whole bunch of scenarios where one will want to link together public and private information, and this is exactly what the OpenID+OAuth combination brings to the table:

http://softwareas.com/oauth-openid-youre-barking-up-the-wrong-tree-if-you-think-theyre-the-same-thing

If I use my OpenID as a common identifier and wish it be associated with me as an author, how and where does a repository or a reader or a publisher gain verification that I am who I say I am, I am the author you think I am, and that author should be associated with that identifier.

I don’t actually think these problems are insurmountable, and can think of several ways that verification could happen from lightweight processes to more formal verification. What I struggle with is how to get this adopted both in the very conservative research publishing process and across the myriad of repository approaches that are being adopted.

I do think a user owned personal identifier is much better than other solutions such as a government or institutionally focused approach. I also think it is a good example of the importance of OpenID as an identifier, rather than getting bogged down in its applicability as an authentication device

Like you – I’ve established a string (’paulwalk’) as a common identifier in a large number of systems.

I’m going to be controversial here…. I chose my phrasing carefully. I think the best model for the future is the simplest – if it’s public, then it’s openly linkable, then it might as well be reliably identified. That is to say, ‘public’ means exactly that. Stuff you restrict or control access to isn’t public.

I appreciate that there are many shades of privacy – but ‘public’ isn’t a shade – it’s an absolute in my book. If we conflate ‘public’ with degrees of control of privacy in the same system then we end up with something like Facebook, where OpenID wouldn’t make much impact difference as none of the content is publicly accessible.

I don’t want to come across as some sort of crusading idealist, so I’ll mention that I appreciate systems which have levels of privacy. Twitter is a great example – I use the Twitter direct message facility from time to time – this is a private messaging service and I use it in a private way. The fact that it’s in the same system as the public Twitter service is a convenience but there isn’t much of a link between these uses in real terms, and OpenID would have little impact here. However, OpenID would be very relevant if directly associated with my public Twitter account.

So, I guess my position would be: if it’s public and on the web, then actively help to make it linkable, sit back and enjoy the ride. If you don’t want it to be public, then use a system with the appropriate controls. If you want to use OpenID in the private system, then we’re talking about convenience again – worthwhile but hardly world-changing!

Somebody disagree with me, please!

In the interests of keeping privacy concerns to a minimum, I’d re-write the opening sentence of the final para as:

Imagine a Web where everything you did publicly was (optionally and under your control) linked by the very fact that you were represented by a URL…