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Are there organizations/groups that can be used to verify that someone is a researcher, that we could use here on Bluesky/the AT Protocol? 🧪☄️ I know ORCiD exists, but I think anyone can make one, which doesn't make it 100% reliable? (Unless it turns out that their moderation is strong)

I have an ORCiD and I'm not a researcher, so yeah, the signal is v weak on its own. They have trust-layer services but nothing definitive.

From my time at Morressier, the honest finding was that "is/is not a researcher" is genuinely hard to answer with useful certainty. The safer approach is being transparent with audiences about what level of verification exists, rather than pretending any single signal is conclusive.

A few things that stack well together: ORCiD + profile interrogability: showing that a profile has linked ORCiD records, with publications from trusted publishers, that people can inspect, is much more useful than just "has ORCID". @sifa.id could be good for this.

Institutional email verification: confirming they hold an address on the domain of the institution they claim affiliation with. Ringgold IDs www.copyright.com/solutions-ri... are genuinely useful for recognising institutions here. Then badge it transparently for audiences.

No single service has complete data or total assurance. Multiple data points + transparency to relevant audiences is the approach that actually builds trust, especially since we know bad-faith authors and publishers exist, and letting audiences interrogate that is healthier than false confidence.