This is a topic that has come up recently in conversations here at Six Apart that I thought I would share with a broader community to hear your feedback and thoughts on the subject:
We see a value in representing the following attributes about an author: * their Display Name (e.g. "Byrne Reese") * their Email (why anyone would want to publish this an easily parsable document eludes me, but that is not relevant :) * their Web URL The above is accomodated by the current spec, but the following is something we would also like to represent somehow in a standard way: * their authenticated identity (e.g. "breese") and the authenticating authority (e.g. "LiveJournal," "TypeKey," "OpenID," etc.) This is more important/relevant IMHO to publishing feeds for comments (in fact I personally would not like to reveal my TypePad, MovableType, etc username to the outside world for the posts I write), where I believe knowing the authenticated entity is valuable. Part of the value I see in supporting this to provide a mechanism for determining whether a comment was an authenticated comment or not. Of course, some may think that one's username is considered private and priveleged information and should not be shared publicly. Thoughts? Byrne Reese Manager, Platform Technology http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/
