Actually, XRI may be the better way to go, particularly since

OpenID 2.0 includes support for XRI

XRI format is already essentially the same as the format for names in
microblogging

(e.g.  @corp or =name  )

Based on this, I like

@ahynes1   @ahynes1/identica etc. to stay with the basic XRI format.

I would leave the xri path up to the different folks as to what it should
mean.

For those wanting to stay with an XRI format,

@ahynes1 would be xri://@ahynes1 when in normal URI format.

To test this idea, I set my XRI identifier   =aldon.hynes/identica to point
to my identi.ca profile.  Unfortunately, ids that start with @ are
considered corporate and cost $55/year to register.  I did just register
@ahynes1, and am waiting for it to be set up.  Then I can really test
@ahynes1/identica

Thoughts?  Comments?

Aldon
=aldon.hynes
  -----Original Message-----
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Joe Cascio, Jr.
  Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 1:09 PM
  To: Derek Gathright
  Cc: Laconica Developers Mailing List
  Subject: Re: [Laconica-dev] Namespacing usernames for cross-platform
routing


  Absolutely agree. A URI is the only way.
  I think the most compelling reason, other that being a well-known standard
already, is that a URI makes discovery possible. So, for instance, I could
be "http://joecascio.net";. Just like my blog home page declares my OpenID
server and delegate, so it could declare my microblogging server and ID.
This also helps to attack the problem of ID proliferation. The individual
sub-IDs I may be known by for email, IM, microblogging or whatever now can
be subsumed by one master ID, or as many as I want to have to serve my
various on-line activities, sort of like carrying multiple credit cards.

  JoeC


  On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Derek Gathright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

    How exactly we namespace micro-blogging usernames was a topic Evan
discussed at Bearhug Camp and unfortunately I wasn't able to be in
attendance to throw in my 2 cents.  But to me this is an extremely important
issue that deserves discussion, so I'm bringing the debate here.


    Here's the problem (as I see it): If
microblogging/micromessaging/tweeting/whateveryouwanttocallit is going to
truly be cross-platform, there needs to be a way to direct messages not only
to users within your own platform (i.e. Twitter, Identi.ca, etc...) as well
as direct messages to users on other platforms (like how email works).
Also, when your message/tweet is sent to another platform and it has an
@reply in it, how is that @reply portrayed on that other platform?


    Example: Currently there are Identi.ca users that make use of a bridge
to relay their messages from Identi.ca to Twitter, and when those messages
contain an @reply, those also get carried over to Twitter.  That's fine &
dandy until someone sends an @reply to identi.ca/bob who is different from
twitter.com/bob, and twitter.com/bob starts getting all these tweets in his
reply timeline that are not really supposed to be directed at him.  The
purist in me says that is a big issue that needs to be resolved before more
people start doing the same thing (*cough* http://laconi.ca/trac/ticket/68)
because it can have a detrimental effect on the experience for users on
other systems.


    Unfortunately I don't remember all the options Evan had written on the
whiteboard at Bearhug Camp, but here are some that I had thought of a few
weeks back when this issue arose


    @identi.ca/derek
    @derek/identi.ca
    @derek::identi.ca
    @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
    @http://identi.ca/derek
    etc...


    You can see patterns develop, and really it just comes down to what
symbols you want to use.  So what are the similarities/differences between
them?  Well, all of them are made-up URI's aside from the ones that actually
point to the user's true URI, @http://identi.ca/derek & @identi.ca/derek.


    As a client developer that has played with mixing twitter & identi.ca
timelines (unlike Twhirl for example which separates them into different
windows) I've really thought about this issue, and the only one that really
makes sense to me is the true URI.  If micro-blogging proliferates as much
as we hope, multi-platform clients are going to be fed many @reply messages
directed at users that aren't hosted on their platform.  If I get a message
that contains @derek/twitarmy in my client, I would have have zero idea
where to actually point for that user's URI or what platform "twitarmy" even
is unless I rely on a list of all the micro-blogging platforms out there
(bad idea).  However, if my client gets a message that contains
@army.twit.tv/derek and I have never heard of "army.twit.tv", it's no big
deal because I have a great idea of where to point my user to in order to
find more information about "derek".  Platforms and/or clients can also of
course hide the service domain if it doesn't make sense to display that info
(i.e. if the recipient is on the same domain as the sender).


    Just think about how different the internet would be if email addresses
weren't "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" but instead would be "gmail.com/drgath".  That
would in fact be your true URI where people could send messages to via
email, could visit via HTTP to see who that person is, could chat with that
person via XMPP by adding that user to their buddy list, could be used as an
OpenID, etc... Social networking would have evolved much differently and
there may not be the need for developer unfriendly silos like MySpace and
Facebook.  Social networking could be... *gasp*... distributed!  We can
finally use a "Universal Resource Identifier" to actually be a universal way
to identify and access a person.


    Now, adding all of the additional modules to handle that functionality
may or may not ever happen, but the potential is at least there.


    Back to Bearhug Camp... I didn't catch all of the conversation
surrounding this namespacing/routing issue and where the conversation left
off.  But I did see Evan erase the "@http://identi.ca/username"; option and
said he was comfortable with the other approaches.  It was one of those
slow-motion "nooooooo!" moments and I wanted to raise the issue to see what
other developers thought.  Am I crazy?

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