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> Putting a @ before a URL tends to look like an email address, which could be very confusing, so we decided on ^ Well, ^https://tent.tent.is https://tent.tent

> Putting a @ before a URL tends to look like an email address, which could be very confusing, so we decided on ^ Well, ^https://tent.tent.is https://tent.tent.is looks like an URL which is also confusing. What if I want to mention an URL to somebody? I'm sorry, but this looks horrible. At least remove the https so it doesn't look like a URL: ^tent.tent.is

alphang 14y ago
If [1]mentions can be in the metadata, I wonder if mentions within the status itself can look like a footnote reference? That way you don't have to display the full URL in the message. [1] ^https://example.tent.is https://example.tent.is
- zoowar 14y ago
  Good idea. Meta-data in general might not play well with others.
jmilloy 14y ago
But it is a url. I agree that it doesn't look nice. As it is, we're pretty used to links with url metadata and different visible text. Occasionally I'll hover over a link to find out the domain. Why not, similar to what alphang suggests, just ^tent (which links to https://tent.tent.is https://tent.tent.is)?
- wahnfrieden 14y ago
  Can you reasonably expect http or https for all endpoints? Then truncate the protocol segment. ^tent is bad because whoops I copied this message to another tent server and now the identity doesn't make sense.
  - jmilloy 14y ago
    That happens if I copy text with a link in it, too: the destination gets lost. We're pretty used to that phenomenon here on the internet. I'm just guessing here, but if mentions are in the metadata, then it would actually be incorrect to copy and paste the mention text (a representation of metadata) into the actual content of a new message anyways. I expect a mature tent microblogging app would have a mechanism for inserting mentions as well as transferring content in and out from other servers in a way that preserves metadata. Metadata should be displayed in an easy to read format, but still be accessible in full.
    - wahnfrieden 14y ago
      If you're going to include a symbol in front of the identity like twitter does, IMO it makes it look like you can use that identity alone to refer to that person. If you can't, then maybe you shouldn't dress it up anymore than just having it be a link. Copy/pasting is not the only issue. A screenshot of a message is also (nearly) useless for identifying anyone in it without absolute URLs. Whether or not a screenshot is "incorrect" behavior isn't really relevant if users are going to do it, which might mean your notions of correctness are leading to a bad design.
      - jmilloy 14y ago
        These aren't really insurmountable design issues. I'm only imagining truncated mentions in-network, so ^daniel.tent.is is ^daniel when you are on tent.is. So when I see a screenshot of a message which mentions ^daniel, and I see that the message is from tent.tent.is, I know daniel is on tent.is, too. If he weren't, you just wouldn't truncate. I'm not going to be designing tent apps any time soon, but I'm finding this quite interesting!
        wahnfrieden 14y ago
        Contextual unique identifiers seem like pretty bad UX to me, and now you also have the additional requirement that any reasonable screenshot would have the site URL contained in it.
        jmilloy 14y ago
        Aren't all usernames are contextual? When I see a screenshot of a tweet, I assume the username and mentions are on twitter and may or may not carry over to other services. If I saw a screenshot of your message in here on hn, I would assume that wahnfrieden is your hn identifier. How is this any different? Each app/server has the power to display the data however they want. We're talking specifically about how tent.is should displays microblogging messages. On tent.is the full user identifier (with the site URL) is visible above each post, so they could safely to truncate tent.is identifiers to make mentions more readable. A different server or app could find a different solution.
danielsiders 14y ago
you can now mention users with ^tent.tent.is as you say. For users on tent.is, ^username (i.e. ^tent or ^daniel will also work soon)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
premasagar 14y ago
I agree. ^username.com feels spiky. There's a strong convention for using @ to refer to someone, not just in email addresses, so I think it will be quite intuitive, especially if the http(s) is removed: @daniel.tent.is works pretty well I think.
- ximo 14y ago
  Exactly. If Tent is to grow beyond the tech crowd, it has to be friendly and easy to use. Using @daniel.tent.is is smart, because it doesn't look like a URL, even though it is. It hides the underlying complexity, which is the right thing to do.
dreamdu5t 14y ago
Why use website URL's for people when there's already a massively popular convention for person URI's: someone@tent.is. I think a "RESTful" protocol should follow this convention.

alphang 14y ago

If [1]mentions can be in the metadata, I wonder if mentions within the status itself can look like a footnote reference? That way you don't have to display the full URL in the message. [1] ^https://example.tent.is https://example.tent.is

zoowar 14y ago
Good idea. Meta-data in general might not play well with others.

jmilloy 14y ago

But it is a url. I agree that it doesn't look nice. As it is, we're pretty used to links with url metadata and different visible text. Occasionally I'll hover over a link to find out the domain. Why not, similar to what alphang suggests, just ^tent (which links to https://tent.tent.is https://tent.tent.is)?

wahnfrieden 14y ago
Can you reasonably expect http or https for all endpoints? Then truncate the protocol segment. ^tent is bad because whoops I copied this message to another tent server and now the identity doesn't make sense.
- jmilloy 14y ago
  That happens if I copy text with a link in it, too: the destination gets lost. We're pretty used to that phenomenon here on the internet. I'm just guessing here, but if mentions are in the metadata, then it would actually be incorrect to copy and paste the mention text (a representation of metadata) into the actual content of a new message anyways. I expect a mature tent microblogging app would have a mechanism for inserting mentions as well as transferring content in and out from other servers in a way that preserves metadata. Metadata should be displayed in an easy to read format, but still be accessible in full.
  - wahnfrieden 14y ago
    If you're going to include a symbol in front of the identity like twitter does, IMO it makes it look like you can use that identity alone to refer to that person. If you can't, then maybe you shouldn't dress it up anymore than just having it be a link. Copy/pasting is not the only issue. A screenshot of a message is also (nearly) useless for identifying anyone in it without absolute URLs. Whether or not a screenshot is "incorrect" behavior isn't really relevant if users are going to do it, which might mean your notions of correctness are leading to a bad design.
    - jmilloy 14y ago
      These aren't really insurmountable design issues. I'm only imagining truncated mentions in-network, so ^daniel.tent.is is ^daniel when you are on tent.is. So when I see a screenshot of a message which mentions ^daniel, and I see that the message is from tent.tent.is, I know daniel is on tent.is, too. If he weren't, you just wouldn't truncate. I'm not going to be designing tent apps any time soon, but I'm finding this quite interesting!
      - wahnfrieden 14y ago
        Contextual unique identifiers seem like pretty bad UX to me, and now you also have the additional requirement that any reasonable screenshot would have the site URL contained in it.
        jmilloy 14y ago
        Aren't all usernames are contextual? When I see a screenshot of a tweet, I assume the username and mentions are on twitter and may or may not carry over to other services. If I saw a screenshot of your message in here on hn, I would assume that wahnfrieden is your hn identifier. How is this any different? Each app/server has the power to display the data however they want. We're talking specifically about how tent.is should displays microblogging messages. On tent.is the full user identifier (with the site URL) is visible above each post, so they could safely to truncate tent.is identifiers to make mentions more readable. A different server or app could find a different solution.

danielsiders 14y ago

you can now mention users with ^tent.tent.is as you say. For users on tent.is, ^username (i.e. ^tent or ^daniel will also work soon)

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

premasagar 14y ago

I agree. ^username.com feels spiky. There's a strong convention for using @ to refer to someone, not just in email addresses, so I think it will be quite intuitive, especially if the http(s) is removed: @daniel.tent.is works pretty well I think.

ximo 14y ago
Exactly. If Tent is to grow beyond the tech crowd, it has to be friendly and easy to use. Using @daniel.tent.is is smart, because it doesn't look like a URL, even though it is. It hides the underlying complexity, which is the right thing to do.

dreamdu5t 14y ago

Why use website URL's for people when there's already a massively popular convention for person URI's: someone@tent.is. I think a "RESTful" protocol should follow this convention.