Hi @Dacha - @namashley contacted me in advance of posting this reward claim incredibly excited about getting their friends familiar with NEAR and with the OWS. The only proof we require to know that these are real people who completed the NEAR Academy course per the Sandbox Referral Program is exactly what @namashley provided: proof of the certificate received and the individual’s Discord handle so we can see them in the OWS Discord server membership list.
There was even added attention to @namashley’s claim because the request was made to these friends to try and make Discord user names closely match their real names, making my process of verifying this claim easier. As a moderator, I do appreciate this level of discussion ahead of time and willingness to make my role easier when I’m going in and verifying the proof of this claim but I am also aware of privacy concerns that should definitely be respected. Posting the LinkedIn profiles or other more elaborate personal information as was requested in the comments here did not need to be adhered to, but I can confirm that @namashley agreebly complied with this request.
Anyone is welcome to join the Sandbox and to take the NEAR Academy courses, and they do not need to be a developer or individuals with an IT background. This is not what the Open Web Sandbox is about. That is an intrusive level of verification that is intentionally exclusionary and therefore harmful to the openness of the Open Web Sandbox. Let us not make requests like this again.