Creating Gravatar accounts for politicians
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Hi,
mySociety, a british NGO, just released http://everypolitician.org/, a site that aims to gather information on every politician across the globe. For Brazil, for example, they have (among other things) the names, official e-mails and pictures of all deputies [1]. This is incredibly useful when creating civic apps. It would be even more useful if every politician had a gravatar account, so any app that needs their pictures could simply use gravatar’s servers.
It’s quite unlikely that the politicians themselves will create these accounts, so it would be great if there was a way to programatically create those (with random passwords). If the politicians, later, would like to change their accounts, they could simply go to the “Forgot password” page and recover it. It seems to me as a win-win situation.
Is it something Automattic would consider? I would love to do it myself, even manually (I could crowdsource), but as I don’t have access to their e-mails, there’s no way I can validate it and add the photos.
Cheers,
Vitor. -
It’s quite unlikely that the politicians themselves will create these accounts, so it would be great if there was a way to programatically create those (with random passwords). If the politicians, later, would like to change their accounts, they could simply go to the “Forgot password” page and recover it. It seems to me as a win-win situation.
Yo! I am married to a Canadian politician and I am a paralegal. Detection of any impersonator account online ie. any account that he did not personally register, whether or not it included his image in such a profile, would result in immediate legal action aimed at its removal.
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That’s great feedback, @timethief. I understand the reason of such approach for accounts on any site where you can “do some action”, like posting, liking, sharing (like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, …), but Gravatar seems to me the equivalent of publishing their e-mail and photo, which are already published (see [1] for example). I don’t see what harm might come to the politician by creating an account on Gravatar, but maybe I’m just not that creative. Could you give me an example scenario? In that case, consider that:
1) No one has access to the account (i.e. they were created with random passwords that no one have)
2) The politician can log into the account by simply going through the “Forgot password” page (i.e. the account is on their e-mail, so it’s their account)The difference is that the account creation was done automatically for her, but only her can access it (if she wants).
[1] http://www.camara.gov.br/internet/deputado/Dep_Detalhe.asp?id=5830756
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It’s quite unlikely that the politicians themselves will create these accounts …
The difference is that the account creation was done automatically for her, but only her can access it (if she wants).
You propose that Automattic Inc. considers making the corporate decision to allow yourself and others, to
- act as a Big Brother;
- disrespect the poltician’s right to choose not to register a Gravatar account;
- register accounts for them, without their express written permission gained in advance;
because such impersonator accounts would be incredibly useful when creating civic apps!
Surely you must recognize that there are people, politicians and otherwise, who do not choose to register a Gravatar account.
Some may absolutely reject any and all forms of Big Brotherism IE. Paternalistic authoritarianism that seeks to supply the needs and regulate the conduct of people, just as I do.
I strongly believe that any Big Brother proposals along the lines of gaining permission from Automattic Inc. to create Gravatar accounts for others, without their gaining their express written permission to do so in advance, has explosive potential, and I’d be happy to light the fuse, and blow them all sky high.
P.S. We are obviously from two very different generations so I want you to know my response above was made without malice. However, I do have a draft post on creeping and creepy Big Brotherism in the online environment, and I sincerely hope I never have cause to publish it.
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@timethief again, thanks for taking the time to share your views here. It’s been highly valuable to me.
To aid me on understanding your position, let me give an hypothetical example. EveryPolitician.org objective is to become a central hub for information on politicians all over the world (name, gender, e-mail, photo, etc.) Imagine that in the future they offer a new functionality: the politician’s photos could be found by going to http://everypolitician.org/photo/POLITICIAN-EMAIL-HASH. In this situation, they would have replicated Gravatar functionality, just without the account creation infrastructure that Gravatar has. Do you feel that, if they did that, they would be impersonating the politicians and “creeping Big Brotherism in the online environment”? How’s that different from what they’re already doing?
I agree that creating a profile for someone else is wrong on almost all cases, but I’m finding it difficult to understand why you see a problem with that being done on Gravatar, as it’s simply a way to link an e-mail to a photo. There’s no writing/tweeting/sharing/liking that can be done. In other words, there’re no channels someone could use to talk as if they were the politician (i.e. impersonate them). Remember that in my proposal, no one would have access to the created account, not even who created it; only the politician if she wanted to (and went through the forgot password page).
Maybe where we differ is that you consider that the politicians have the right of not wanting to have their pictures online. I’m not sure how that stands legally, but morally I have no problems on making a public photo from a public figure easier for others to use. I don’t see what harm can come from this, but maybe I’m being naive.
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Hi Vitor,
Gravatar is an avatar service for people to link an avatar to their own email address; it isn’t meant for other purposes, such as creating avatars for other people. There isn’t a way to automatically set up Gravatar accounts for other people, such as public figures, without their involvement.
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