I start this discussion becouse i think this must be discussed.
The question is basically use some specific name for diaspora which is it easy identify as diaspora name.
When you see name@pod.com any user identify it as email. But is it not easy identify it as diaspora name, you must know the pod name and you must know this is name and not email.
Idea of this is using something as: name*pod.com which any can identify as diaspora name. Noone can say email now.
I know the discussion about sending emails to messages on pod, but this isn’t solution of recognition diaspora name.
The new name can be used on business card, on webpages as contact, on billboards, in TV ads and many more.
Do you think this is good idea?
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name@domain is a normal syntax, the fact that it looks like e-mail doesn’t matter. XMPP IDs (JIDs) also have the same syntax and are successfully used - no need to invent new syntax for that purpose.
I see a lot of benefits to both approaches. Older protocols such as OStatus made use of the name@pod.com social handle convention, whereas newer protocols like Tent just use the name.pod.com as the explicit way a user is identified. This is actually something that’s really interesting to think about from a usability standpoint: in Diaspora, you have to mention a user by their actual name rather than their username.
Different conventions for mentioning in decentralized social applications:
Diaspora: Sean Tilley (with an @ sign before my name to make the mention work).
As you can see, it’s a mixed bag of conventions here. In a sense, mentioning behaviour can be used to get an idea of how different applications represent a user. StatusNet involves using two @'s just to mention a remote user, whereas Tent’s mention system is largely based on just mentioning a person’s URL instead. Diaspora’s is unique in the fact that mention behavior is not directly affected by user handle representation.
Really, this is something that isn’t that simple to change, as our federation stack is currently used to looking up users via Webfinger addresses, which currently use an email-like structure.
I quite like the idea, aesthetically, of using Diaspora’s ‘trademark’ asterisk in people’s handles as a way of differentiating a Diaspora handle from other personal identifiers. It could possibly be good to introduce this as an alternative way of denoting a Diaspora handle, so that both user@podname.org and user*podname.org would work.
The only potential drawback of this approach that I can see is that it could be difficult to code to take account of all the ways a computer might get confused between when a person is writing a Diaspora handle and when a person is writing something similar in structure but with a different sense.
One of the reasons, I think, that the @ symbol was chosen for email addresses was that it was a key which was pretty much redundant, i.e. it was extremely unlikely to be used in communications except in an email address. Asterisks are used far more commonly, not least in Markdown, so there’s a lot more scope for someone to write something similar in structure to user*podname.org, and it might be very difficult to account for these likely variations.
Sean, I don’t think the original point is about @-mentions within Diaspora - it’s about how to denote a Diaspora handle which can be given to other people, for example printed on business cards. The thought is that user@podname.org looks to a person like an email address, and they’re suggesting we adopt a standard for presenting a Diaspora handle which is distinctive. Not a way of @-mentioning someone in Diaspora, but a standard for saying ‘here is my Diaspora handle’.
In my opinion, there is no benefit to that:
@ is the standard internet way to identify user: the syntax of an url is protocol://username[:password]@[:port][/path/][?query][#fragment]
It’s the way the internet works, why do we need to change that? Besides, it would create confusion for the users (and it’s even worst if we use both syntax), and it would imply to completely rewrote something which works. We have enough work to do, please do not complicate things with useless stuff…
Of course is it only for determine user on pod, no mentions etc. Basically wold be perfect have ability search user on diaspora pod. In programing language i have idea when: detect user*pod.com replace * by @ in application. Thats really enough. User on any pod can search user with this name as seen in business card, TV ad or anything else. This is idea.
It’s nothing about complicating, but better using of diaspora by many users.
Let me explain it.
The first point: Is it redirect, @ will be used and * will redirect to @.
Second: Fast understanding. Someone will identify * as famous diaspora community. And it can be used on many media without description what mean @. After some time all will be informed, this is diaspora user on pod.
Third: Significant identifier. Many users can easy define herself on profile page, CV and other personal informations.
Fourth: Independence. The new * will have no effect to old pods without update, becouse is it redirect to @. The name@pod.com can be shown on profile and when it is available name*pod.com this will be shown on profile page too. This can easy inform users on possibility use asteriks.
What do you think?
It’s nothing about broke standards, but make diaspora better.
I like the aesthetics of user*pod.org as something unique to Diaspora, but I think it introduces too many potential problems, both technical and in terms of human misunderstanding, when there isn’t really a problem in the current situation to be solved.
On your business card you can always write:
"email: me@myserver.com
jabber: me.myself@myjabber.net
diaspora: mm@mypod.net"
And having @ in the identifier is good if we decide to implement a chat in Diaspora using XMPP.
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