The following is a draft working towards a proposal for adoption as a Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal must not be taken to represent consensus, but is still in development and under discussion, and has not yet reached the process of gathering consensus for adoption. Thus references or links to this page should not describe it as policy, guideline, nor yet even as a proposal.
Identity verification is the process of confirming that a Wikimedia contributor's identity matches to some other identity, such as their offline identity, a user account on another website, or another persona such as a person claiming to be a representative of an organization.
Many aspects of the Wikimedia process for identity verification are controversial, but each of these things is true:
There is no established policy or guideline for identity verification in Wikimedia projects.
Identity verification is a requirement to participate in some online Wikipedia and Wikimedia editing.
There are several Wikimedia community processes which demand identity verification, and more than 100,000 people have participated in these processes since c. 2010.
Some parts of the current ambiguous process work well, and some parts of the process do not work well.
This is a central page to discuss any aspect of the process, including what practices are in place and what policies exist.
The identity of this user account has been verified by the Volunteer Response Team. Full documentation is available to trusted volunteers. If you are an English Wikipedia user and wish to confirm the verification, please leave a note at the VRT noticeboard.
No ticket number specified; verification invalid!
This page shares information about applying that template.
This is the process of protecting or reclaiming a Wikimedia account in case of lost password or stolen account
Mostly we handle this with technical account recovery processes
2-factor authentication, password reset, and ((Committed identity)) are among the options for this
Technical proposals
Wikipedia:Account Verification, a 2018 essay on the default technical capacity of the MediaWiki platform to store identification data and exchange it as structured data
Processes which request identity verification[edit]
Wikimedia Commons verification of copyright ownership for media
Having a Wikimedia username which matches the name of a public figure
Such people get blocked and since 2005 templated with ((Uw-ublock-famous)), "Please be willing and able to prove your identity to Wikipedia."
The recommended practice is to verify identity through WP:VRT
There is no consistent VRT verification system
Conflict of interest editing
Wikipedia highly discourages conflict of interest editing
Simultaneously, in uncommon but recurring misconduct scenarios like harassment campaigns, corporate espionage, impersonation for defamation, a Wikimedia editor may request a concerned media subject to verify their identity to add credibility to their claims. No Wikimedia community member wants to do this, but it sometimes is the preferable choice for stabilizing an issue and guiding it back to the usual wiki processes.
Certain volunteer administrator roles, including being a WP:VRT agent or WP:Checkuser, require a special professionally organized Wikimedia Foundation verification, which is different from volunteer identity management. This process is not problematic in the way described here.