The initial 3D sketches of what might be the first citizen of Authentic Society. Created in Pixologic ZBrush 3 by Greg.

Welcome to the Authentic Society project

The Authentic Society project is an experimental on-line community based on original concepts influenced by the real-world human relationships, psychology, personality research and the behavior analysys of people who are using the site.

Authentic Society cannot be compared to any other "community" web-site existing on the internet today, because it is simply not influenced by the ideas of the traditional online community sites. Most of the site's features and concepts are truely original. For example, there is no need to write an "about me" section for your profile. As you are using the site, your profile will be built automatically. In addition to the auto-profile, which is the main description of the users using our site, we have a user-written biography section which reveals more intricate details about the user, such as his/her personality or writing style. The auto-profile on the other hand serves as a more authentic imprint of the user's personality and activities because it is not directly controlled by the user.

We want to provide people with an easy-to-navigate web-site that can be used to communicate with friends and meet new people on-line.

The site is built as an online community based on personality research as well as an information resource. Our user profiles are insightful autobiographies into people's lives. Once you sign-up for free, you can add information to the Encyclopedia Section by writing articles on any subject using your autobiography account. One of the distinctive features of the Authentic Society site is the use of user labels. As a member of our site, you have the choice to label others with Adjective Keywords or you can Respect users by simply clicking the appropriate links on their profile page. Each user has Authenticity Rank defined by several factors, for example, how well your biography and articles are written and if they are getting traffic from popular search-engine sites like Google or Yahoo. Your Authenticity Rank is also affected by how others describe you. When you accept an adjective that other people describe you with your authenticity increases. Our users are encouraged to only accept adjectives that they believe describe them as a person, however, there are a few additional precautions taken by the site's Artificial Intelligence algorithms that make these choices more authentic. We're in favor of keeping this information anonymous to some degree in order to protect user privacy, but display enough information to make the site usable and fun.

Authentic Society is a community web-site that stores user accounts that eventually will be integrated into a 3D world system similar to those of MMORPG games such as World of Warcraft (but based on realism, rather than The Lord of The Rings mythology), Second Life and Entropia Universe. In the future, the site will serve as the main web portal for the "virtual reality" software that is being developed as you are reading this (however, there release date is not set as of yet). This software will allow users to connect to the virtual world and be anything they want by creating "avatars", or 3-dimensional counterparts of themselves. It is recommended to sign up for an Authentic Society account right now before all the good screen names are taken! When this software is ready, you will be able to use your web-site login information to enter the 3D world.

The Authentic Society project will not succeed without the help from our users. While by today's standard (2007) the emphasis on the design of current online communities lies in the internal mechanics of the site from the implementation of AJAX to providing members with an easy-to-understand user interface (in other words, making the site easier to use) to developing Facebook and OpenSocial applications and "gadgets", Authentic Society's emphasis is on the Politics and Sovereign system which is defined and controlled by the users themselves.

Just like in the real world, the questions of power and influence arise among the residents of Authentic Society. On our site, you have to think what you say, before you say it, because everything you do will be labeled by others and those with higher reputation and authenticity will have a bigger influence on deciding what your label is. It is your choice to agree or disagree with such labels.

The Artificial Intelligence algorithms are smart enough to figure out what labels should bear an amount of influence capable of changing your status, and more importantly, by who. Unfortunatelly, we cannot reveal the mechanics of this algorithm and tell you how it works exactly. But be sure that we've thought of everything and only opinions of those people that matter will count.

It is very simple to understand -- if you happen to be a member of the Authentic Society project, you are either labeled as having Slave morality, or Master morality. Those who are labeled as having Slave morality are the users who are described more times than the number of times they describe someone. In the same way, those with Master morality are the ones who describe (or judge) others more than they are being described by others. This is purely an experimental concept but we would like to see how people react to these labels and what their intentions are as far as developing their identities goes. What will be the ratio between the users with Master and Slave moralities? Only time will tell...

The Encyclopedia section of the site contains all articles ever submitted by the users of our site. Submitting articles increases your Authentic Society reputation and helps the site to attract even more visitors. It's a double-edged sword, if you will.

There isn't a "friend's list" on Authentic Society. Users identify the circle of friends and people they communicate with by building relationships. To show interest in being friends with someone, click the thumbs up icon on someone's profile. That will catch that user's attention and if they are interested in chatting with you, they will most likely post a comment on your profile or click on the thumb up button on your page, which will make your relationship a mutual friendship. What happens if that user clicks thumbs down button on your profile page? That means they are not interested and you will not longer have the ability to contact them in any way.

**some of these features are already functional on the site, some are only in concept stages. You can make a difference. Join the site now to become a part of the Authentic Society project.