usernames from other sites with different file structures

[azurelunatic]

Title:
usernames from other sites with different file structures

Area:
user tags, playing well with others

Summary:
Make it possible to add specific external sites with different file structures as recognized entities and make their users linkable with <user name="" site="">

Description:
So not all external social sites are structured site.tld/users/username. Some of those that aren't are even used by Dreamwidth users. Take Ravelry, where that structure is http://ravelry.com/people/username

Obviously, Dreamwidth won't be able to recognize all the possible social media sites out there, but it would be nice to be able to do this at need, and would be nice to do it for reasonably stable, popular sites where Dreamwidth users have profiles of their own, or friends, or both. (Take Ravelry...)

If this happened, there should of course be an interface for whoever gets stuck managing this (probably staff and senior Support) to easily manage it.

Poll #2452 usernames from other sites with different file structures

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 61

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
44 (72.1%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (8.2%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
0 (0.0%)

(I have no opinion)
12 (19.7%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[denise]

As a note, this can totally be done (and the code makes it quite easy), we just have to figure out a) some policy for when a site 'deserves' to be taught to the codebase and b) some process for gathering the data/submitting it to bugzilla.

[aveleh]

I like the idea of doing some sort of combination of automatic and manual. Adding something to a queue either because a user says "hey, can you make this site work?" or even better, every time an entry or comment is posted, pulling the domain from there into a queue.

And then having the queue work like the spam queue or something - trusted users can monitor it and deal with it from there.

Wow, that was vague :)

[aedifica]

I'm neutral. For sites that already use a usericon to designate profiles, I'm in favor, but since sites like Ravelry don't, it doesn't strike me as a need. (Despite being on Ravelry myself.)

[aunty_marion]

As a minor point, the favicon for Ravelry (the little black r on a green/white background) would be vastly preferable to their own logo as a usericon... That red Ravelry swirl is a bit too similar to a lot too many other things, but the r is instantly recognisable (if you use Ravelry, that is!).

[sedge]

+1

[piscinarii]

Agreed.

[coraa]

I think this would be awesome, but I think we'd need to have a cutoff where it needs to be requested by X people to be worth staff's time. Or something.

[ursamajor]

Like. Like. LIKE. ... I thought I'd already commented to this suggestion; guess not!

[pauamma]

"with changes" as in "as needed to include sites that use the http://foo.example.com/~bar format")

[ratcreature]

I would love to have that for deviantArt. At first I thought that the username site combo would work, because the URLs look like DW's, i.e. username.site.tld, only then when I tried I learned that the code thingy depends on that other structure.