Identity
Introduction
In this section of the documentation we talk about how identities are associated with each person.
On Socket network, identity of a Person is a unique set of character and that Identity is what gives the narrative to a Person.
Identity is the unique individuality of the person. This means it shows how they view themself as compared to other people based on the attributes / characteristics which identifies them in standing out from other individuals.
Profiles and identities
Profiles and identities are closely linked to each other on Socket network. You identity comes from your profile information.
It consists of three types of fields namely, 1) Mandatory Field, Optional Field and Verified Field.
1) Mandatory Field : This is a must fill field and one has to fill the details mandatorily.
2) Optional Field : This is an optional field and one can choose not fill or give any details in this field.
3) Verified Field : This is very important field. This can be Mandatory or optional field, but is verified by the concerned person, department, of company voching for the authenticity of the information given here. Example, the experience as shown here can be verified by the concerned previous employer, the education shown here could be verified by the University / college itself to authenticate the education level, the email ID could be verified by sending an OTP to the declared email and verifying the same for confirmation. This saves the time for verification for many apps. For example, for a job seeker, when applied to the vacancy, the jpb provider can consider the verified fields like education, or experience as authenticated ones and no further verification would be required.
Note that Identities and Profiles are the key areas of discovery.
The identity acts as a passport (Self declared but verified and authenticated by others) to enter different communities or to get in contact with others. Community specific identity is granted by community and cannot be used elsewhere. Identity given by any member or a person in contact, must be verified and authenticated by the other members / other contacts. Identify in a gevernment community is to be verified and authenticated by the government.
Because of the multilevel verification and authentication by others, it makes the socket identity a unique and powerful feature which is more reliable and trustworthy in nature.
In socket, different Apps require different parts of the identities. Entering a community with certain profile information as sought by the admin of that community has to be addressed individually on a case to case basis and in agreement with the profile owner as opted in settings. In settings, on security point of view, if user do not wish to give some of the information while entering the community, tt is entirely upto the user’s willingness and discretion.
For example, if one is looking for a dating partner and the person does not want to disclose his basic identity, then while entering the dating app, it asks for choice of his/her name as to be shown to the other users/ proposed partners of the dating app. The fields like address, education, experience, phone number etc are kept hidden from the other users of the dating app. This is to maintain the user’s confidentiality and to safegaurd the real identity of the user as per his/her requirement.
Similarly, while using the jobs app, the fields like the name, address, education, experience, skills etc are taken in as mandatory fields as per the basic requirement for the use of that app. Without these field details, the user will not be able to see or apply to any kind of job vacancy.
In ecommerce app, the information on education or the experience of the user are not mandatory to disclose to continue the purchase and hence these fields would be hidden from the sellers/other users in the ecommerce app.
Hence, based on the requirement of the apps, the profile can be categorized as Personal, Professional, Dating, and Public profiles.
Personal Profiles are visible to the owner alone. Here, there will be additional / personal / confidential / vital informations like height, weight, colour, blood group, Blood Pressure, Drug allergies, shoe size, food preferences, likes and dislikes, habits, etc, which need not be shared with anyone unless required by the owner. This profile also contains the demographic details of the owner including the details of his activity on Socket.
The Professional Profiles contain informations like the real name of the person, address, education, expereince, skills, expertise, awards and accolades won, References, etc which help the person in his professional career.
The Dating Profiles contain very basic informations like the pseudo name of the user (as chosen by him to show to other members of the dating community), Age (may not be the real one), place/location, gender, etc as required by the app.
The Public Profile is required to have an identity in a public community like a City Community, where a nick name, location of the city is shown and all other details are hidden or shown as per the approval of the user.
Profile Rating is the feedback rating given to the person’s profile by the other members of the Socket community.
Influence Level is calculated based on the quality of the tweets, number of responses to it, and who all responds to it. The more quality of the message is, the more number of responses one gets, and more prominent or influential people responds to the message. This increases the influence level of the individual dramatically.
Setting relationship :
It is very important to set relationship with each (atleast some) of the contacts one whould have developed to make it easy to identify and seperate them based on these relationships.
This can be easily set on the connect’s profile. Click on the profile and click on the “add relationship” button available at the end of the profile page. One can select the relationship (from the dropdown list) you have with that contact/user. This would make it easier to sort according to the selected relationship. There are 23 such type of relationships in the dropdown list, as given below
- Acquantance
- Creator
- Manager
- viewer
- Admin
- Approver
- Applicant
- Moderator
- Connection
- Follower
- Guardian
- Family
- Friend
- Colleague
- Boss
- Subordinate
- Classmate
- Spouse
- Significant Other
- Girl Friend
- Boy Friend
- Neighbor
- Custom
Please note that the relationship you setup can be changed by you anytime when you are in your account and can be changed any number of times.
Also note that the relationship can be reciprocal or cannot be reciprocal between the two contacts. Example for non reciprocal relationship can be, One could be Boss and the other could be subordinate, One could be Boyfriend and the other one could be Girlfriend. But sometimes, it can be reciprocal. For example both could be Friends to each other, part of the same Family, each other’s Spouse, Each other’s Colleague etc.
Socket has one special relationship known as “Guardian”. This is special because of it’s special powers it carry with it. The ‘Guardians’ can help the user to restore his account. For example, if one looses the account credentials and not able to login to the account, or has lost the phone and could not trace it, but needs to log into the account using a different/new phone, in such situations, the “Guardian” helps the user to “restore” (get back to) his account without loosing any previous informations. Please note that you can change the guardian relationship any time.
How many Guardians can you select ?
One can select upto 6 Guardians in an account. However, only 3 among the 6 guardians are required for restoring the account. So one should be very careful in selecting the Guardians.
How to restore the Account?
If you have lost the credentials of the account and are trying to restore the previous account, then do the following steps
- Download Socket to the new device on which you want to restore the account.
- After installing the Socket app, open the app and click on the “Restore” button.
- An OTP is generated on your system.
- An alert is sent to the guardian about your restoring account
- Share this OTP with any of your 3 guardians (People whom you had already set the relationship as Guardians)
- The guardians will enter the OTP and your account handle (It is mandatory to remember your account handle as it is unique for each account).
- Once all the 3 guardians enter the OTP and your account handle, your account is restored on your new device.
Please note that unless you remember your unique account handle and without setting 3 “Guardians”, you will not be able to restore your account.