Re: ORCID - unique identifiers for contributors

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 17/09/2013 11:19, Melinda Shore wrote:
> On 9/16/13 1:02 PM, Yoav Nir wrote:
>> If we use ORCID instead of email, we get less strong authentication.
> 
> That's not its job - it's there to distinguish between authors
> with similar names.  

Fair enough, but adding a public key to the record would enable
authentication too.

> As I understand the proposal the intent is
> to have it provide additional information, not supplant anything.
> There is currently no identifier that provides that kind of
> discrimination.  

I wonder about that, but this is certainly a decent option. I can
see it being especially valuable for people who change their name but
want to keep a unified publication history. Also for people who've published
under legitimate variants (B Carpenter, B E Carpenter, Brian Carpenter
and Brian E Carpenter have all published, and [e-mail]
asserts that they are all the same person, except for the ones that aren't).

> I don't see any real downside to allowing
> people who have ORCIDs to put them in IETF documents.  

Agreed.

    Brian

> I'm not
> sure there's a lot of demand for them (this is the first time
> it's come up, as far as I know) but I don't see a problem with
> plopping one more piece of information - one that has a unique
> function - into our docs.
> 
> Melinda
>