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

It would be useful at some point to have a “big picture strategic” discussion on “where do we want to take this all of this?” IMHO

In addition to the more tactical “we can write a report or FEP” for an incremental feature, which is most of what we are doing currently.

(And I don’t mean discussions such as “let’s all move to DIDs” — what technology to use or not should be driven by what we want to accomplish, not the other way around.)

Manton: underlying what you are saying appears to be a desire to change (expand? simplify? …?) the usage model that we have today for 99% of AP users, which is: people sign up for accounts on social websites, and then use these accounts to interact with others from there. I would agree with you that this is more limited than it ought to be for the future. If we figured out what else we want, we could then look at what impact this would have on the current stack, and whether, for example, changing (expanding? Maybe even permit the use of http URLs as primary identifiers again! :-P) the identifier format is one of the things that would need to happen to support that.

Of course the consensus for the strategic discussion could be “we like it just the way it is” although I kinda doubt that!

Cheers,



Johannes.


> On Sep 23, 2025, at 10:03, Evan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name> wrote:
> 
> I see three ways to approach this idea. 
> 
> - Just implement it for search and at-mentions, and let it spread as a defacto standard. 
> - Write up a FEP.
> - We take it on as work for the SocialCG. There is a Webfinger TF that is closed, but I guess we could reopen it...? Otherwise, a task force for identifiers, or for this specific identifier format "@hostname".
> 
> Of the three, I think a FEP splits the difference between prioritizing speed and collaboration.
> 
> Evan
> 
> On Sep 23, 2025 12:34, Manton Reece <manton@micro.blog> wrote:
> Hi Johannes and everyone,
> 
> This has been a good discussion, and I wasn't going to chime in, but I feel that someone should make the case for eventually standardizing on simple domains and subdomains for handles. I bring this up because it could influence what the answer to Johannes's question is.
> 
> Right now, the clear convention is Mastodon / WebFinger-style handles:
> 
> @manton@example.com
> 
> There are two problems with this: it looks like an email address, even with the "@" prefix, and it implies identity is usually tied to a server that someone else is running. There is no natural progression for solo instances in the way there is with subdomain → domain name .
> 
> I would love to see a gradual transition to:
> 
> @manton.example.com
> 
> And simply:
> 
> @manton.org
> 
> This is obviously a big change and won't happen soon, but I think it's worth working toward. There have been proposals to map it in a compatible way with existing software too, e.g. special names with an underscore like ?resource=acct:_@manton.example.com. ActivityPub itself wouldn't need any changes.
> 
> I don't see how we'll ever get to a universal social web identifier — one where you could put a single handle on a business card and it works across blogs, the fediverse, atmosphere, etc. — without doing this.
> 
> — Manton
> 
> On September 16, 2025, Johannes Ernst <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.
>