Some time back I added OpenID support to this blog. It is not enabled by default from WordPress, but is a single plug-in that can be added easily enough.
What this means for you.
If you have an account with a system that provides OpenID information, you don’t need to create an account here to post comments, and you don’t have to go back to facebook twitter identi.ca or any other place where you found the link to an article here to comment on it.
How do you know if you have an OpenID enabled account some place? Well if you added a link ot a provider to a page you maintain, you probably know that already. On the other hand there are a lot of people who have OpenID access who may not know it.
If you have a LiveJournal account, then you have an OpenID account. Digg and Yahoo have support as well.
Unfortunately I don’t know the URL format for each platform. However the basic concept is that if you have a ‘home page’ on a platform that supports OpenID, then putting the link to that home page into the URL field in the comment page.
If you want to try some ‘home page’ that you have, please feel free to add an entry showing what provider you use, and the format for using that provider.
Why this matters.
The alternative to using OpenID would be to have an account on my system. That means I need to mantain a user profile for you. That on top of trying to read and where possible respond to actual comments.
“just turn on …’ Sorry, won’t happen. Yes, I could allow you to just post an email address and a name. The problem is that the only ‘verification’ there is that it looks like an e-mail address. There are also e-mail servers out there that will agree that any e-mail address you claim there is acceptable. I don’t honestly trust an e-mail back to your provider as valid.
All comments are moderated. That means I review all comments before they end up being publicly readable. Hey it’s my blog, I’m it’s editor. If you want to comment, you’re basically writing a letter to the editor. The comment is still your own, and you are responsible for anything you say, but I decide whether it looks like SPAM or a troll. There are probably a few dozen variations on what I won’t accept. If I think it’s an attack on a user or platform, I’ll probably consider it a troll.
I’ve tentatively set up ‘locking’ on posts. If I blogged on it over a month ago, it’s probably not open to add more comments at this point. I may bump that up to 90 days if someone asks.
Contact.
If you need to reach me outside of the blog, feel free to send me an e-mail at rusty ta curry tod net. My e-mail does go through a few spam filters, so if you want it deleted, it’s not all that difficult.
511 words.
Verified that google.com works as an openid provider, simply select the google icon and you will be prompted to log in there. Testing others.
Comment by rusty0101 — November 2, 2009 @ 8:10 pm
And Yahoo! works. For some reason Flickr did not, will try some others…
Comment by rusty_curry — November 2, 2009 @ 8:14 pm
And a correction, the flickr authentication works as well.
The AOL authentication may not be very useful, and I’m going to leave the LiveJournal testing to someone with an account there.
Comment by rusty_curry — November 2, 2009 @ 8:26 pm
OpenID does work with some minor issues. For example while it logged me in via Verisign, it did not bring me back to the blog. Not exactly the best solution.
There are options to add Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other authentication services. I’m not going to activate those at this time. First most require that I create an ‘app’ or plug-in there, which I’m not interested in doing. Second adding more than 6 auth methods will cost money that I’m not currently expecting the blog to generate.
Let me know if there are any issues with logging into other resources.
My own OpenID provider is Verisign, and while I’m not entirely certain this is the issue, the place where I could provide feedback included a number of fields I chose not to include. Considering that I don’t track them on my own blog, I didn’t think it was necessary that they be collected through the gateway that I’m using at the moment.
The workaround once you have provided the fields that you want to have authorized is to navigate back to the blog yourself.
Comment by Jay Curry — November 2, 2009 @ 8:36 pm
It lets me sign in from Yahoo, it does not let me sign in from Livejournal.
I can manage.
These computers are so naughty and complex sometimes, I could just pinch them.
Comment by mle292 — November 2, 2009 @ 9:20 pm
Ok, I suppose that if there is some demand at a later point in time to enable either facebook or twitter authentication I can kill off the LiveJournal entry then. Somewhat disappointed in that.
Once an account has an approved comment, for now, that means that account can comment on any posting and the comment will show up immediately. I can turn that off if it becomes an issue.
If you would rather your name show up differently, you should be able to change your nickname in your user settings. I haven’t tried that from a user side though, so I’m not sure how simple it is at the moment.
As for computers being pinched, it happens all the time, very frequently at airports, but also any place where the owner gets inattentive. The one that minds the most of course is the owner.
Comment by Rusty — November 2, 2009 @ 9:54 pm