Micro.blog friends: is there a convention yet for identifying a username on another service where the domain isn’t included in the username (as it is on Mastodon)? E.g., if I wanted to mention someone who is on Twitter but not on M.b, is there something like @dancohen[twitter]?

@dancohen @Manton That's a great suggestion. I'm not aware of anything like that, but it would be nice to have. (I suppose you could always create a link to someone's Twitter handle, like so: Twitter: don_macdonald but a shortcut like that would be nice.

@donmacdonald @manton I was thinking of something perhaps even shorter, like the two-letter airline codes, which might be more memorable across services. People already shorten Instagram as IG and Facebook as FB, e.g., so you could have TW, FB, IG, MB, etc., as in @dancohen-TW.

@dancohen @manton This suggestion and discussion sounds pretty interesting. My only problem with conventions than an interface is it becomes difficult for new users to follow. We need this, it would be good to have. But it also makes a simple usecase a tad complex.

@dancohen @donmacdonald @amit Another option we might be able to explore is having the native apps know how to link a Twitter or Mastodon username, and then on the cross-posting side it can translate usernames when it knows how to match them up between services.

@manton That is potentially an interesting and elegant solution. Part of my rationale here is also to demote the prominence of Twitter's @-usernames as “canonical" in some way.

@manton Yeah. It also simplifies it for end users. But then we depend on external app devs to support services, which is a big ask? @doncohen

@dancohen Thanks, I think that's a really good goal. Related, I've been wanting to add tiny Twitter icons next to Twitter usernames here so that the timeline is more readable when someone specifically links to a Twitter profile.

@manton Cool. I was in fact just thinking that maybe icons/emoji are a better route than the letter codes as they are more readily identifiable.

@manton The twitter icons next to Twitter user names would be a really nice touch and jibe visually with the emoji "keywords"

@manton Icons would be a more elegant solution than character codes, but I’ll admit that I’m not overly enthusiastic about a timeline with corporate logo chicken pox — particularly the ones that are openly hostile or hopelessly negligent stewards of their position on the web.

@manton This is exactly what I was going for when I brought up the point on convention. It’s a great step which doesn’t require a user to understand the shortcodes. And if he adds a Twitter link, platform conveys the user’s intention. Perfect! @dancohen

@schuth I share that concern too. Right now, there aren't that many Twitter @-mentions, so we'll just have to see how it goes and be ready to revert it if it's messy. (This change isn't ready to go live yet anyway.)

@oyam ah, that's smart.

@dancohen Why would we not just hyperlink to their profile on that site? It doesn’t disambiguate in plain text, but presumably in this context you’re only linking to one profile and the browser’s hover feature will tell you where the link goes.

@davextreme yes, good idea, that might work in many cases.

@dancohen A few more thoughts on the @ username convention: david.ely.fm/2018/08/0...

@davextreme I think this is totally on the right track. I have considered glyphs/emoji/favicons as well, and indeed have considered putting a bird in front of @-mentions for Twitter usernames. Of course, without it becoming a convention, it might be odd for non-Micro.bloggers.