🆕📝 Every Service Should Allow Domains as Handles

@pimoore True, but it seems like usernames dissolve into ever longer ones with numbers and underscores anyway, so at least I could memorize my friend’s weird url once and then struggle on every network.

@pimoore UUiDs.

@pimoore just append it to the username. The UUID should be unique without one. CompuServe used 70037,1407 as the identifier for Archimage, me. Log in with the UUID, display the username. Map it internally. Not a huge problem.

@pimoore a simple solution to a one-to-many problem. Not every Archimage is 70037,1405, but only one 70037,1405 is Archimage. If you want both to be unique just concatenate the two. Then it’s 1-to-1.

@pimoore display the ID along with the name. That’s what CompuServe did.

Archimage (70037,1405) reporting, posting and replies would require both.

@pimoore having a user-searchable user directory would help.

@pimoore it’s like a phone number. You still need a phone number to call someone. Even if you don’t remember it.

@pimoore new problems aren’t new ;) just ask someone old enough.

@pimoore I still remember my UID

@pimoore that just bypasses the problem. That assumes unique usernames on the domain. It’s not unique in the fediverse. The domain name just makes it user friendlier. A user should have a UUID across the fediverse which would essentially reserve the username now and in the future. Otherwise archimage@x.z may not be the same person as archimage@writing.exchange. @manton

@pimoore It doesn’t have to be part of the user-visible username. It can be stored internally in the DB to de-duplicate users with the same user name on the domain/instance. As I said, you would need it to post/reply/and report to, so displaying it UNDER the user name would work.

@jarrod if you want, a user could assign an alias to a user name, that maps to a user-UID combo. It’s more work for the devs, but not burdensome. @manton

@manton Awesome sauce! That’s great to hear. Thanks!