Re: Standardizing the printed and HTML version of a an ActivityPub handle

It sounds to me like you are addressing a different requirement than I meant to bring up.

I’m not attempting to say “disallow http identifiers for AP”. I’m also not talking about anything related to how software can figure out something.

I am asking for a convention for how users write down their social web handles when asked. On paper sign-up sheets. On HTML registration forms (like my use case). And conversely, how they should be rendered when shown to the user, such as when printed on a business card, or shown on a website.

E.g. — and this is just one possible proposal:

* If your canonical identifier is http/s, provide this. Protocol is optional (like we’ve gotten used to in web browsers)
* If your canonical identifier is acct:, provide @foo@bar

In HTML,

* if your canonical identifier is http/s, show <a href=“<URI>”>URI-without-proto</a>
* if your canonical identifier is acct, show <a href=“<PROFILEURI>”>@foo@bar</a> where PROFILEURI is … you get the picture.

(Could have have cute text adornment, too)

Does this clarify?

Thanks,



Johannes.



> On Sep 16, 2025, at 13:54, Benjamin Goering <ben@bengo.co> wrote:
> 
> By design, ActivityPub IDs can be any URL. So for https, for example, that means it's important to consider the rendering of activitypub ids like https://bengo.is/this-persona/this-context/ as distinct from https://bengo.is/this-persona
> 
> MY concern with a lot of what you suggested, and this suggestion in general, is that none of those ways of rendering accommodate the flexibility in ActivityPub of an actor potentially having any https URL as it's only identifier.
> 
> I would also point out that this seems redundant to some extent with the 'name' property on actor, which already is an affordance for a human readable representation of an actor.
> This seems like something that should be decided by individual actors and their choices of how to use the protocol, not necessarily decided by a standardization committee. To some extent it already has been decided: Just print the URL, and if that's too ugly, use the value of the 'name' property and hyperlink to an https://url <https://url/> (e.g. from id or url properties).
> 
> To summarize
> 1) I think it's usually a good idea to use the .name property for a representation of the 'handle'. that's what it's for. hyperlink to .id or .url depending on uri schemes
> 2) Your suggestions dont accomodate valid and useful ActivityPub Actor IDs, eg.g. the example I gave before: https://bengo.is/this-persona/this-context/ . However, the render method I suggested above accomodates this just fine.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 1:32 PM Johannes Ernst <johannes.ernst@dazzlelabs.net <mailto:johannes.ernst@dazzlelabs.net>> wrote:
>> During registration for FediForum (which is coming up again, by the way!) we are asking people for their social web handles:
>> 
>> Here is a selection of what they give us when they probably mean ActivityPub
>> 
>> @foo@bar
>> AP: @foo@bar
>> https://bar/@foo
>> foo@bar
>> foo (???)
>> acct:foo@bar
>> 
>> Is it time to define a canonical version?
>> 
>> Perhaps there could also be a canonical, clickable HTML version.
>> 
>> Just a thought.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Johannes.
>> 
>>