Long, long ago I ran into a similar (but much on a much smaller scale) problem. Here's how I solved it: If I'm using identi.ca, @susan refers to [EMAIL PROTECTED]; for twitter, [EMAIL PROTECTED] If I'm using identi.ca and want to refer to [EMAIL PROTECTED], I would use @[EMAIL PROTECTED] (ugly with the double @'s; in my old system, we used !'s; e.g. [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]:susan on twitter!).
When my note is syndicated to another system, the reference is rewritten from the perspective of the system it's being read on, so a viewer on twitter would see a message from "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" to "@susan", but a viewer on identi.ca would see a message from "me" to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". Using the [EMAIL PROTECTED]:description]! variant (or something similar, perhaps with []'s), you can define nicknames (or just infer from someone's contact list) and rewrite them into that form automatically. seth On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 9:11 AM, Joe Cascio, Jr. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'd like to hear some discussion on a related topic, which is ID > proliferation. I would think Chris Messina might have something to say on > the topic, being involved in the DISO project. In addition to the problem of > having more than one person having "@susan" there is a growing problem of a > single Susan being [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], > [EMAIL PROTECTED], etc. > > I'm bothered by the fact that most discussion seems to assume that identity > is merely a projection of XMPP's ID mechanism. Wouldn't it be better to have > someone's OpenID meta-data provide a discovery mechanism for any of several > servers that they might be contacted on? Then the XMPP address/identity > would be a lower level routing, perhaps invisible to the end user? > > This surely doesn't solve the SMS problem, which is due to the fact that > simply more characters are needed to create globally unique addresses, but > I'd like to make one observation about short (domain-specific) vs. long > (domain-independent) names. > > In the set of all people that I talk to, on Twitter, email, or IM, I have a > hard time coming up with any two that have the same local short name. Yes, > there are multiple JoeCascios out there, but I don't think any of my online > contacts know them. Ok, so my name is fairly uncommon. What about a > JohnSmith? How many JohnSmiths do you know? Couldn't potential conflicts be > handled by a personal nickname? The globally unique low level id could be > mapped to my own local short alias for that person. The default short alias > is their own defined short name, but I could override that to let me > distinguish messages arriving at my device. > > JoeC >
