I think for categories, I would create them to start, I think that's needed just to get off the ground.

Skill attribution should be whoever, but probably be relay based badges or lists for the sake of initial bootstrap, but again I'm unsure if badges are actually currently working on nostr BC no badges show on nostr:nprofile1qqs24yz8xftq8kkdf7q5yzf4v7tn2ek78v0zp2y427mj3sa7f34ggjcpzamhxue69uhhv6t5daezumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5hszrnhwden5te0dehhxtnvdakz769wywf for me even though I've accepted several. I like badges over list BC of the accepting part vs someone can put you on a list you don't want to be on (ie I know SQL but don't want anyone to come talk to me about it). Which then makes skills always positive and wot would be what solves the negative part. Permies.com does this with their PEP badges which I've been thinking I should port to nostr since I first got on. Also i know it's not possible today, but something I could see myself adding to the badges spec would be multiple user signed badges (ie badge is only awarded if a and b sign notes granting it.)

So I guess what I would ask you is, have you considered badges as a booster to wot? Because really that would be the purpose of this, to add filtering layers to wot.

For example, imagine AWS and azure were on nostr. Their certs could be badges. As an employer, I could delegate my trust to those npubs, and use this tool to search for people they've granted badges to in specific areas.