Make "OpenID URL" thing clearer for LiveJournal users and others

[feathertail]

Title:
Make "OpenID URL" thing clearer for LiveJournal users and others

Area:
Posting comments when you aren't a logged-in Dreamwidth user

Summary:
We need to make it clearer to LiveJournal users that they should put their LiveJournal's URL in the OpenID URL field.

Description:
Y'know the place where it asks for your "OpenID URL" in the comment form? The one time that a LiveJournal-using friend of mine (an intelligent, Linux-using friend, mind) commented on my Dreamwidth journal, he just left a comment as anonymous. Even though my auto-crosspost included text saying to use OpenID.

You can say the problem's that he didn't read all the way, but I think OpenID is confusing, poorly explained and not self-explanatory. It's remarkably convenient, but we haven't yet found a good way of telling people how to use it. And I think probably most of the LiveJournal users who come here won't know that they can. Blogger and WordPress users might be more savvy, but then again, they might not.

I'm not sure how well it'd go over to give totally new readers a mandatory crash course in OpenID. But I think we need to somehow make it more clear that if you have a LiveJournal (or other OpenID-enabled) account, this option is for you. To use terminology that they'd be familiar with, and to specifically call out LiveJournal and/or other likely sites as places you can bring your account from.

So I thought I'd put in a ticket suggesting that. >.>b

Poll #1705 Make "OpenID URL" thing clearer for LiveJournal users and others

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

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
5 (29.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (11.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
4 (23.5%)

(I have no opinion)
5 (29.4%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (5.9%)

Comments

[zvi]

I voted against it because it's not a concrete proposal. It's like saying, "I think we should implement world peace next year." Yes, that would be awesome, but you need to actually do some figuring about why the world is not at peace and what should be done to make it that way.

[feathertail]

You're right, it does need to be more specific. Let's try this as a specific suggestion then: Replace "OpenID URL" with just "Website." Then use that in conjunction with a "Name" field, the way WordPress does.

The thing is, nobody knows OpenID exists ... and nobody should know exists. But everyone has a website they call home, whether it's an LJ or a DA page. That "website" field is a chance for them to tell us who they are. And if their site plays nice with OpenID, then we all get the added benefit that we know that they're who they say they are.
Maybe we could even do like the JournalPress plugin and automatically grab their LJ userpic as well, if that won't tick off SUP.

So ... replace it with a "Website" field, with a note that says "LiveJournal users, please enter the URL to your LiveJournal so your identity can be verified using OpenID." That explains what it's doing, and savvy web users will see that magic word and realize they can use their Blogger account or their homegrown OpenID server to authenticate as themselves here.

The alternative might be to do like foxfirefey suggested and have them select, but I think that just adds more clutter. (I'm guessing 90% of our OpenID usecases come from LiveJournal, anyway.) The beauty of just asking for a website is that it works whether or not they know what OpenID is, and even whether or not their site has OpenID enabled. It just works better if it does.

[feathertail]

Agh, sorry about the formatting in the second paragraph.

[denise]

So basically, tie the OpenID field in with a "guest commenter" type of named anonymous? That's interesting, and significantly different enough (IMO) from the suggestion as posted that I think it's worth running through as a separate suggestion.

[feathertail]

I'm actually not sure what you mean by "a 'guest commenter' type of named anonymous", and I'm assuming that may be a typo there. >.> You're right, though, it should be a separate suggestion. Let me take care of that real quick.

[denise]

Oh, I mean something like bug 759, which is basically to introduce a new level of commenting, "named anonymous", where someone doesn't have an account but still wishes to identify him/herself as a specific name. (Like the way most other blog platforms have the option.)

[feathertail]

Ah, okay. Yes, maybe the two could be combined! Your screen name (or real name) and your website are the two basic things that identify you online, and OpenID gives us the technology to authenticate one of them.

Well, there's also your email address, but most people are hesitant to give that out.

[cesy]

Maybe change the text that says "OpenID" to say "OpenID (inc. LiveJournal)"?

[foxfirefey]

I think what we need is something like ID Selector to increase the usability of OpenID. We probably don't want to use IDSelector itself, because I don't think the Terms of Service are very compatible with our open source ethos, though. So, that means rolling our own--fortunately it shouldn't be too hard to consider the main cases.

[pseudomonas]

Yes, this. In the meantime we could have some examples in the page text: username.livejournal.com and username.openid.net being among them (possibly with an example for those poor souls whose username begins with an underscore).

[cheyinka]

Yeah, that'd be really helpful, I think.

Is there a(n easy) way to tell what OpenID providers people have logged in with to use Dreamwidth so far?

[turlough]

+1