Improve OpenID claiming

[alierak]

Title:
Improve OpenID claiming

Area:
OpenID

Summary:
Claiming your OpenID may help with future imports that bring over your comments, but there are other areas it does not cover.

Description:
We have a mechanism where a DW user can "claim" an OpenID identity (e.g., an LJ account that has been used to post comments elsewhere on DW). That records the claim in a table and kicks off a job to change ownership of all the OpenID identity's previous posts. Thereafter, if an import of some other journal is going to bring over comments owned by that user on the remote site (which would normally be shown using their OpenID identity), ownership is changed to reflect the DW user during the import. However: - I don't think the claim relationship is shown anywhere in the DW profile or metadata for the OpenID userid. Perhaps the profile for that userid should just redirect to the claimant anyway, like a renamed user. - I think it's still possible for the user to log in and comment using OpenID, and then those new comments cannot be changed over to the DW user because that OpenID identity is already claimed. Like the importer, comment posting probably ought to check claimed_by first. - We don't update the circles of everyone who has trusted the OpenID identity. This could probably be done in the same worker that changes ownership of posts. These things are probably all unexpected behavior if you're migrating from another site to DW. Thoughts?

Poll #17823 Improve OpenID claiming

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17

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This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
8 (47.1%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (5.9%)

(I have no opinion)
8 (47.1%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I might be unnerved by the following workflow:

(Unbeknownst to me, one of my LJ friends claims their OpenID under a username I've never heard of.)
I import, including comments/relationships for that person.
I find that there is a Dreamwidth user whose name is unfamiliar to me in my access list, with no indication of how I might know them.

[alierak]

Yep. That is the current workflow (although I'm not certain about relationships, just the comment ownership).

I might amend my suggestion to include a profile link from the DW user to the OpenID identities they've claimed, but then I would have to wonder if people really want their identities to be firmly linked across sites. That should probably lead to some wording changes when claiming an OpenID identity.

[alierak]

Upon reflection, if you don't want the link to be discoverable at all, just don't claim the OpenID identity.

[azurelunatic]

I would observe that in the case of someone claiming a comment, it will presumably then exist with the same text in different places under different names. If both locations are public and indexed, or merely seen by the same person (such as the locked entry of a mutual friend), it's not outside of possibility that the person would draw such a conclusion. Especially if the same userpic is in use both places. (A friend and I once discerned the Sekrit Fandom Journal of a moderately well-known author, based on mutual friends, interest lists, and both journals displaying the same birthday.) It would likely be helpful in any case to remind people that such connections can ... connect.