@BeAware@social.beaware.live or don't respect it and get free clout because half the fediverse will be yelling about it ðŸ§
exerra@daedric.world
Posts
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Just a tip for any new developers in the Fediverse space: -
Feels more and more that all the so-called friends of #foss have fallen:@BeAware@social.beaware.live @darth@silversword.online @nilesh@fosstodon.org Part of making standards and stuff like that is making sure that whatever you end up doing doesn't break preexisting expectations and code. That is why a bunch of standards are so messy - they can't disrupt existing behaviour, only add on to it.
Theprofile:username
tag is complicated in this regard because (1) you can't guarantee that you won't break any existing expectations & code, as well as (2) it's very ambiguous.
Every other OpenGraph tag has a clear usecase. The username tag on the other hand does not. If you are making something that uses it how can you tell what platform that username is meant to point to? Is it Facebook (most likely the idea when making it)? Twitter? Reddit? The same random blog/news site it comes from?
And your idea about formatting - how can you guarantee that the username is a fediverse username and not, for example, a defederated chat apps username (or even a fediverse clone that doesn't interoperate with the fediverse!)). You just can't, all you can do is guess.
Making a whole new tag with a very clear usecase is a much better solution than taking over a very ambiguous tag which may or may not break preexisting expectations and code. -
Feels more and more that all the so-called friends of #foss have fallen:@BeAware@social.beaware.live @darth@silversword.online @nilesh@fosstodon.org The creator tag thing is a bit more complicated than that.
First of all we need to understand that OpenGraph isn't an open W3C standard. It was made by Facebook so URLs posted on Facebook can look prettier and have more info. It later went on to just become the de facto standard as, well, why reinvent the wheel.
Now with that explained, let's look at the actual tags. There is aprofile:username
tag in the OpenGraph docs, but it isn't used... at all... and it's uncertain why it exists, if there is already an expectation on what it should be and for what platforms the username would be given. Given it's a Facebook project, it might be meant for Facebook usernames, but, who knows, even they don't mention it.
So, instead of potentially breaking preexisting functionality and "taking over" a tag, they made a new one with the fediverse prefix. Seems like the safest option IMO, especially since with the fediverse prefix everyone (and every piece of code that looks for it) knows, without a doubt, that it is meant to be a fediverse username.