Contribution and identity
Policy and system design — not yet implemented. The current site has no contributor accounts or intake database. This page states the proposed rules before those systems are built.
People should be able to suggest a reading, correct a word, add a language example, or report a problem without surrendering more identity than the contribution requires.
A name, an account, and a verified credential are not the same thing.
KISOP will state exactly what has been checked. A registered account means the same account can return. It does not mean KISOP has established the person's legal identity, qualifications, or truthfulness.
Five separate questions
| Question | What it means |
|---|---|
| Authentication | Does this person control the same account or authenticator used before? |
| Identity proofing | Has evidence connected the account to a particular real person? |
| Credential checking | Has one specific claim—such as a professional license—been checked with its issuing source? |
| Reputation | What has happened to this contributor's earlier work after review? |
| Authorization | What may this account submit, review, approve, or publish? |
The NIST Digital Identity Guidelines, Revision 4 separate identity proofing, authentication, and federation into different assurance questions. KISOP follows that separation instead of using one vague “verified” badge.
Three public identity choices
Anonymous
The public record says “Anonymous contributor.” If private contact information is provided, the person is publicly anonymous but not anonymous to KISOP.
Registered public account
A chosen name or pseudonym appears with contribution history. Registration proves account control, not a legal name.
Identity-checked contributor
A steward has checked an identity or a specifically claimed credential. The label says exactly what was checked.
Public labels may include Registered account, Identity checked, Credential checked: California RN, Language reviewer: Spanish, Mexico, or KISOP steward. KISOP will not use a generic “Verified user” badge.
Who needs which level?
| Contribution | Minimum identity | Review rule |
|---|---|---|
| Suggest a reading | Anonymous allowed | Judge the source and disclosure, not the contributor's legal name. |
| Report an error or safety concern | Anonymous allowed | Safety, privacy, mistranslation, and accessibility reports never require registration. |
| Propose a term or language example | Anonymous allowed | The proposal remains distinct from verification. |
| Verify ordinary language | Authenticated reviewer account | Record the reviewer's relationship to the language and the community reviewed. |
| Verify medical, legal, financial, consent, safety, or emergency language | Authenticated reviewers; identity or credential check when relevant | Two independent language reviews plus steward review. |
| Publish or administer | Manually approved steward | Strong authentication and an append-only action record. |
How a contribution enters the site
- Choose the contribution type: reading, language example, term, correction, organization, law, architecture test, code, design, or problem report.
- Provide the item itself, why it belongs, its source, and any relationship or conflict of interest.
- Choose public attribution: public name, pseudonym, anonymous, or contact-me-before-publication.
- Submit once without an account, or register to track, edit, and respond.
- Receive a permanent contribution number such as
C-000142. - A steward checks safety, duplication, sources, permissions, and the appropriate review path.
- The public record shows the decision, reasoning, reviewers, published changes, and later corrections.
Suggested statuses are Submitted, Under review, Needs information, Accepted, Published, Declined, Withdrawn, and Superseded.
Example: suggest a reading
The form asks for the link, why it belongs, suggested categories, and whether the contributor or their organization wrote, published, funded, or sells something related to it. The contributor then chooses public credit and may provide a private email for a reply.
Language examples across communities
Each example belongs to a numbered concept and a specific language context. The record includes:
- Concept number; BCP 47 language tag; script; country, region, or community when relevant.
- Preferred term, plain definition, example sentence, context, and words people avoid.
- Source of the example, permission or license, contributor attribution, reviewer, status, and date.
- Optional audio only with explicit permission and a clear retention policy.
- A cultural or safety warning when wording could mislead or harm someone.
| Concept K-100007 | English · United States | Spanish · Mexico |
|---|---|---|
| Language tag | en-US | es-MX |
| Term | allergy | alergia |
| Example | I am allergic to penicillin. | Tengo alergia a la penicilina. |
| Status | Draft | Draft |
This table demonstrates the structure; it does not mark either rendering as verified. Verification names the actual scope—for example, “reviewed for Spanish used by caregivers in Southern California”—rather than claiming one universal form for an entire language.
Language review
- A contributor proposes wording or an example and may remain anonymous.
- A reviewer checks whether real people in the named community would say it naturally.
- For consequential language, a second independent reviewer checks meaning and cultural or safety risk.
- A steward checks provenance, permission, conflicts, and required fields.
- The rendering publishes with its exact status, scope, reviewers, and date.
Relevant standing may come from lived or professional experience: native speaker, heritage speaker, translator, clinician, teacher, caregiver, community elder, or another description. KISOP records the description rather than treating one kind of credential as the only source of language knowledge.
Account security
Passkeys are the preferred sign-in method. They authenticate an account with a public-key credential scoped to this site. Email links may serve as an accessible fallback for ordinary contributor accounts, but not as the sole recovery method for stewards.
- Stewards use two passkeys or a passkey plus a hardware security key.
- Recovery codes are stored by the steward, not emailed in plain text.
- Publishing and moderation actions enter an append-only log.
- Private contact information is separated from public attribution.
- Public contributor IDs remain stable even when a display name changes.
Canonical references: W3C Web Authentication Level 3 and the FIDO authentication specifications.
Signatures are not identity proof
A cryptographic signature can establish that a particular key signed a contribution. It does not by itself establish the key holder's legal name or qualifications. GitHub makes the same distinction when it marks a commit signature as cryptographically verified.
The registry therefore keeps separate records for:
- Consent to publish and license the contribution.
- Public attribution choice.
- Private contact information.
- A language or subject-matter attestation.
- Any identity or credential check.
Canonical standards and methods
- NIST SP 800-63-4 Digital Identity Guidelines — risk-based selection of identity, authentication, and federation assurance.
- NIST SP 800-63A-4 — identity proofing and enrollment.
- NIST SP 800-63B-4 — authentication and authenticator management.
- NIST SP 800-63C-4 — federation and assertions.
- W3C WebAuthn Level 3 — public-key web authentication and passkeys.
- FIDO specifications — phishing-resistant authentication standards.
- IETF BCP 47 / RFC 5646 — language, script, and regional tags.
- Unicode Locale Data Markup Language — locale and language-data structure.
- W3C language declarations — marking language correctly for browsers and assistive technology.
What must happen before accounts open
- Finalize contribution, attribution, privacy, retention, account-deletion, and licensing rules with counsel.
- Pilot anonymous reading suggestions as the lowest-risk contribution.
- Build registered accounts with passkeys and private contact storage.
- Build the moderation ledger and public contribution records.
- Add language proposals, then reviewer and steward roles.
- Allow canonical registry publication only after the review and licensing path works.