The main focus of registration is to establish identity and identification in a way that supports meaningful diversity. When someone comes to register their identity is defined by entering some personal details, which may be categorised as follows:

  • factual (formal identification): such as nationality, the kinds of details that might be stored in an identity card.
  • factual (personally-defined identity): such as ethnicity. These are not stored for purposes of identification, but for purposes of one’s own subjective identity.
  • subjective personal: aspects such as world view or religious belief, also contributing to subjective identity.

The system can encourage a newcomer to reflect on their identity – both what they regard personally, in private, and how they wish to present themselves to the world. It will encourage the newcomer in making basic meaningful choices that have an impact on how the service is delivered.

  1. Sigala can invite registrants to first of all select what is important in how they identify themselves – not just in what they put in their summary profiles, but how they view the world1:
    • Religion, belief system or world view
    • Nationality
    • Ethnicity
    • Gender2
    • Family
    • Friendships
    • Profession
    • Memberships
      Some means of identity are more problematic and can be omitted from the list, including
    • Politics
  2. Registrants can rank their selections, indicating what is salient in their identity.
  3. Then registrants review their selections and indicate levels of sharing – from completely private to fully public
  4. The system then will then prepare views – in terms of what profile data to show, and how to form the layout (for themselves and for others). The views are determined according to various factors:
    • the profile selections made by the giver.
    • the relationship type between giver and recipient
    • the profile selections made by the recipient
      For instance, someone who is ostensibly religious will have religious content and contacts more visible. On the other hand, for someone who regards themselves as religious, but doesn’t want to show this, recipients will not receive this impression from the interface, but may do so in other directed communications. Where both the giver and receiver indicate common elements in their identity, these commonalities may be highlighted subtly, perhaps in slightly emphasized colour schemes.
      For people who are connected according to a particular relationship type, this can be reflected in providing different profiles (including portrait images etc) in the context of, for example, shared identity3. This could be refined still further to project other aspects – for instance an old school photograph in the context of school reunions.
  5. Individuals will be able to preview how their content will appear to others. This will indicate the range of views, which may be based on each direction4. The subsequent interactions in each of the directions then serve to establish the identity; in this way identity is affirmed as multi-faceted and as such it becomes diversified. Technically we may regard a persona as a subset of these facets that reflects naturally the given relationship context.

In this way, identity really becomes operative in the SNS and contributes to the system’s personalised architecture in a way that is affirming and enriching for the participant.

Next we consider how a user makes connections.

Notes

1 Compare with e.g. UK National Statistics office guide to Identity:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/people-places/people/identity (archived)

2 “Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviour, activities and attributes that a particular society considers appropriate for men and women.” World Health Organisation
http://www.who.int/topics/gender/

3 This is discussed by the Buddha in terms of states of consciousness in the Potthapada Sutta [MN 1]; the key term is atta patilabha, which translates approximately as ‘acquired personality’.

4 The preview function resembles the need for coordinators in e-learning systems to be able to ‘switch user’ to see the course views provided to tutors, lectures, students, and all the other key roles.