The real name grid - how would you go about such a thing?

This is not a feature suggestion, just a wondering how one would do such a thing question.

Suppose someone decided to have a "real world grid". In this imaginary "real world grid" the avatar would all have a field that shows the users' real world name. There real age might show. Real life photos of the users would be in the profiles. Their real sex would show.

The question is, given that people can join from anywhere in the world, how would one go about ensuring the accuracy of these real world profiles? Would there be any practical way of ensuring this?

Are there any places on the internet like chat rooms or similar that display reasonably well verified real names and personal info?

I'm not a technical guru, so I have no business answering this. I'm just thinking out loud.

How could there be a grid such as you describe that still protects the individual from some nefarious use of that information? I'm curious why this would be needed.

But assuming it is needed, what about bigger information pipelines? Would they allow streaming webcams for everyone? This would at least insure physical appearance, having a video you could interact with in real time. But then you pretty much just have a video phone. What then would be the point of having an avatar?

I would have no use for such a grid myself, but a viable 3D on line dating service might free up THIS grid for those of us who just want to explore and have aquaintances. Just a few days ago a group of strangers accused me of being a woman in RL because I wouldn't voice. Usually it's the other way around! You just can't satisfy these people.

i think it sounds like a neat idea actually.i mean as long as we could still have all the other features of sl but be ourselves in the world..our avatars look like us..
but then again omg the drama would follow you home for sure lol

actually i think i did come a crossed a virtual world when my sl was down and they did use their rl selves or at least their rl images and video..if i find the name of the site i will post it up here for you =)

Given the growing epidemic of identity theft and fraudulent use of social security numbers here in the USA, and the fact that it can take months or even years for someone to finally prove that they really are who they say they are, I seriously doubt that such a system exists.

Short of sub dermal ID chips, implanted at birth, I don't believe there is a practical way of ensuring the accuracy of any given profile. And I really don't even want to think about the implications of that system even though they are already starting to be used.

Heh, I have though of what it would be like to have a web cam display attached to your avatar or otherwise included in the display. I bet you someone would like to have a virtual world with webcam insets.

Folks communicate over the phone, and their identity is conveyed by the sound of their voice, and supported by caller ID. People revealing who they are to each other doesn't completely eliminate all desire to communicate with each other.

Folks wanting to use a virtual world as part of a real world dating service might want to have accurate info about who people really are from the start.

People can always use information about in nefarious ways. When you show your driver's license to a store clerk they could remember till you leave and then write it at the end of their future victim's list.

People that see you walk around and about in the real world can track you and attack you, but that doesn't keep many people working on the internet and ordering out.

I give my real world name and address out all the time on the internet, every time I establish an account at some real world oriented site like a bank, or every time I buy something I tell them where to ship it.

There are many social networking sites where folks are supposed to put there real world info in their profiles, not made up stuff. Not all the info shows, and some shows to some categories of members and not to others.

You might want to frequent Everett's office hours. This week's topic was about integrating social networks into SL, including voluntarily sharing RL information.

(Disclaimer: I've only been to his office hours twice so I really don't know what his usual topics are. The other time I dropped by the topic was machine translation with pro/contra of integrating it directly into the viewer which you brought up in another thread today)

I want machine translation!

Active Worlds has a widget in facebook. Unfortunately it only works in Internet Explorer, thus rendering it exceedingly undesirable. And Active Worlds has some clunky things about it, such as the flying.

When you want to verify that an avatar belongs to someone you already know in the real world I guess that's pretty easy to do with some questions or with voice chat. The verifying info is exchanged between the concerned parties, not made public everyone. Once you know the avatar is really your cousin or such then you can use your avatar as a means of communicating between real people. (Of course there's always the problem of who might be operating the avatar at the moment, your cousin might have stepped out of the room leaving the cable guy standing by the computer.)

Hmm, once video on a prim gets implemented, the webcam image hovering over your avatar idea can be done by users without any further work on the VW provider's part, and that would reveal who you are to those who know you, and in most cases reveal your age and sex to anyone that sees you. Once video in the embedded browser gets implemented, a web site could display webcam in the embedded browser, with some method of connecting the webcam image with a particular avatar.

Again, I am not a feature suggestion to change all of SL or even a part of SL.

Heh, people have objected to creating a facebook or other social network account for their avatar because they don't want to give out real world details, but at most of the sites, such as facebook, they can create an account and give out zero real world info that is shown to anyone.