[afandian]

Seconded. I'm not an academic but I deal with academic publishing and I might want to participate.

My suggestion: use ORCiD.org for authentication with OAuth. This is a researcher profile. Most academics have one (or should!). They're free, the service is open. I think it strikes the right balance between barrier-to-entry for spam and accessibility.

[Vinnl]

I've implemented sign-in using ORCID, and although I support the idea, its UX is far from great, its documentation isn't either, and it also isn't terribly stable (it was down on my launch day...).

[icebraining]

How does ORCiD.org itself deal with spam? Seems like they just use a captcha, no?

[killjoywashere]

More about ORCiD for the skeptical: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORCID

[afandian]

If anyone has any questions I can ask someone from ORCiD to come over here and answer them. They're very open!