Add Facebook to the list if linkable sites

[andrewducker]

Title:
Add Facebook to the list if linkable sites

Area:
Posts

Summary:
I can link to other DW users, LJ users, Twitter users, etc. Can we add FB to the list?

Description:
https://www.facebook.com/TheAndrewDucker links to me, for instance. I'd like to be able to use the standard DW user name=theandrewducker site=facebook.com to make this link work.

Poll #11605 Add Facebook to the list if linkable sites

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 66

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
24 (36.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (1.5%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
21 (31.8%)

(I have no opinion)
19 (28.8%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.5%)

Comments

[msilverstar]

is there a reason not to do this aside from a general hatred of Facebook?

[denise]

The only thing I can think of is that FB concepts of a "username" is a little weird; they only introduced them later on, and many people don't even know theirs.

[swaldman]

I don't see that as a reason not to allow the use of them?

[denise]

No, just that we might get people trying to link with <user name="John Doe"> rather than <user name=john.doe.18> or whatever!

[swaldman]

ah, ISWYM!

Mart Bug Death

[azurelunatic]

If there was a way to know what comprised an Allowable Username on Site X, and Site X possesses a user search, I would be cautiously in favor of the usernames module expanding to encompass a swift check to see if that is potentially a username (faster and more reliable than checking with the remote site) and if it wasn't, making a username-search-link or something.

However, it's Mart Bug Death and might also not scale particularly well, not to mention what happens when the remote site changes stuff up. (This is the sort of thing that should become a Big Friendly Intercommunication Protocol or something, if it's not already, actually...)

[kunzite]

I'm what would be <user name="miketrethewey" site="facebook.com"> but not everyone has assigned usernames to their accounts. therefore, a system like that would not be feasible for facebook. and you can change your display name every so often, so, having it in the format of <user name="Mike A. Trethewey" site="facebook.com"> would not be effective either because tomorrow I could be simply <user name="Mike Trethewey" site="facebook.com"> without my middle initial.

(Personal information about myself is being submitted with my full knowledge of its presence, just in case that was a concern.)

[arethinn]

lol. That was my thought too. GET THEE BEHIND ME

I assume the way LJ implements this is far different and/or not open source...?

[azurelunatic]

This confuses me; I know that LiveJournal allows Facebook users to log in and comment on things, and that their Facebook names would show up when making comments, and that probably means that people can use the "ext_###" username to make reference to those people's using-Facebook-to-log-in-to-LJ profiles on LJ, but not that there was a quick and easy way to link directly to the Facebook presence (even for people who have a Facebook but haven't used Facebook to log in on LJ).

[swaldman]

I think that LJ uses Facebook Connect now, which is their proprietary rival to OpenID. As I read it that isn't what this suggestion is about. Facebook have recently introduced usernames that allow one to visit somebody's profile with www.facebook.com/username (or similar), and I can't think of a reason not to support these as we support LJ, twitter, or various other usernames in < user > tags.

[azurelunatic]

Exactly.

I can think of one additional potential drawback (besides D's point that remembering the remote username and the proper format for it will always be an issue), and that is that the possibility to more easily link to a particular remote user will result in more crossing of the streams. I can see this becoming a potential problem given three specific circumstances colliding:

1) A person who maintains presence on both platforms, with dual identities that are not linked in public.
2) A friend who knows both identities and maybe hasn't quite grasped the importance of maintaining the separation...
3) ... and who has the dual-identity person filed in their head under the Facebook name, not the Dreamwidth name.

Given a friend who has filed someone under their Facebook name, currently the lack of easy linking to Facebook is at least some small barrier to that person not accidentally (or "accidentally") referring to the dual-identity person by the wrong name on Dreamwidth.

I know it is a barrier because before the ability to easily link to Twitter users, I tended to refer to the bloke who hosts my Twitter scripts by his DW/LJ name, wibbble. Now, he doesn't maintain an actual separate identity, just he got his LJ well before he came up with his current Twitter username, and his main presence is now on Twitter, as semanticist. And in fact I'm pretty sure he prefers his Twitter username in general, which is why he's filed under that now. But until there was the username linking for Twitter, I couldn't be bothered to manually code a @semanticist link when I could just say wibbble. Now I can use his actual name easily. This is a good thing for me and him, because I'm using his more-preferred and active handle, and it's easy for me.

This would be bad if it were used wrongly. For example, that one guy who makes a point of calling people by their legal names, weaseled my legal name out of me despite my reluctance and me pointing out that if I could get everyone I'm actually friends with to call me Azz I would, swore up and down he'd respect my wishes and call me Azz, and then proceeded to not call me Azz a year later ... that dude is a problem and probably needs banning from my journal because he can't be bothered with boundaries, and making it easier for him to use my Facebook name does not benefit me.

However, that guy is still a problem waiting for a place to happen, and making it easier for him to use my Facebook name doesn't change that it's a problem with him, not a problem with Dreamwidth making Facebook links easy.

[swaldman]

I can see that, and I can see that this is a real problem for some people, but as you note at the end the underlying issue is not how easy DW makes links to Facebook. I'm not sure that there's any difference in principle between making Facebook links easy and making Twitter or even LJ links easy, and it doesn't feel like it should be DW's role to have an opinion on one side over another in this context.

All IMHO, of course.

[musyc]

I constantly forget that FB has usernames now. XD I'd assume that most people who'd want to use this particular type of name-coding would know their friends' usernames rather than FB (randomly-assigned?) ID numbers.

I don't know enough about coding to determine if this would be a sticking point, but FB allows dots in their usernames. Would that cause troubles like the old issue with hyphens/underscores?

[matgb]

My ideal world solution is that OpenID gets another round of work done so that it can effectively be merged with Oauth and FB Connect to make a simple cross site sign on that allows easy interoperability, it was certainly part of the plan last time I was paying attention. At that point we'd need to be able to support whatever the agreed protocol was and make it easy for our users to refer to Twitter, Facebook and other off site IDs easily.

In the meantime, enabling this as a quick fix would be a workable plan and certainly make it a lot easier for those of us that have cross site discussions and mostly with people using "real" names and Facebook IDs.

[andrewducker]

I was under the impression that OpenID is slowly losing traction.

In any case, I'd want to be able to refer to people who have never interacted with DW.

[manifold]

We're not on Facebook, and to be honest, really don't like Facebook (the privacy issues, ugh), but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to allow people to more easily link to Facebook users. It has the potential for misuse, but everything technically does.

But, of course, not being a Facebook user, this is a purely intellectual issue for me.

This may be totally barking up the wrong tree, but is it possible that the Diaspora Project might have useful code that Dreamwidth could make use of? It's open source, but I'm not sure how compatible the licenses are with Dreamwidth—I think Diaspora uses AGPL except for a few places where it's both AGPL and MIT License.

[azurelunatic]

A technical note: adding a site to the legion of can-make-a-user-link goes about like this:

Figure out what their user profile (& main space, if different) links are shaped like.
Figure out what picture to use for the userhead.
Copy and modify the relevant code from one of the other sites on the list.
Submit the patch and wait for someone else to check it for typos.

(Someone who has done this may be able to correct me on details.)

[stardreamer]

I'm not thrilled with this idea specifically because Facebook forces you to have an account before you can look at anything on it. (I'd have the same objection if you were talking about doing this for MySpace.)

Also, I do have a Facebook account, but I keep it on a VERY tight leash; I don't connect it to my other accounts, and I don't want anyone else to be able to do so either.

[ninetydegrees]

I don't like FB but it does let you look at some things even if you don't have an account whereas Ravelry, which is *already* on the list of linkable sites, absolutely won't so I don't think it'd be fair to say no to FB because of this.

[alexbayleaf]

Not quite true; you can share Ravelry projects etc, they just default to closed and you have to actively open it up to share it with people outside.

[ninetydegrees]

I was thinking about profiles. Every Ravelry user tag I've seen redirected me to the login page. Have I just been unlucky?