Comment by jazzyjackson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jazzyjackson | Hacker News Reader

I was just looking up some github issues and noticed that the @username@domain.tld format is not supported by GitHub's markdown parser, instead of linking to their mastodon profile it highlights everything but the leading '@' as an email address. I wasn't sure where I would submit the issue for this and used to be I would go to twitter to shout my bug reports at the organizations official handle.

So I thought, maybe GitHub is on mastadon and I search, here are the usernames that come up:

  @github@hello.2heng.xin
  @GitHub@mstdn.social
  @github@mstdn.jp
  @GitHub@mastodon.social
  @github@m.gretaoto.ca
  @GitHub@me.ns.ci

The last one uses a :verified: macro in the username to place a blue checkmark next to their name, another uses :github: to place the github logo in their username.

Pretty interesting that you get to buy a domain name to solve the global username problem and have as many elonmusks as you like (for the viewers at home, impersonating elon is now a ban-able offense), but as for proving identity, when editing my mastodon profile and I see an option to verify that I control whatever links I post below my bio, by sticking an anchor tag in that webpage linking back to my mastodon profile. Smart, instead of being deemed worthy of a celebrity checkmark, you just prove you're the owner of X website.

> So I thought, maybe GitHub is on mastadon

If it was, then surely it would be something like @mastodon@github.com or @official@github.com? Just like with emails, you wouldn't expect official emails to be somewhere else.

And no, that doesn't mean everyone needs a full blown Mastodon server, I think just some sort of ActivityPub relay or a more lightweight server implementation would do.

> If it was, then surely it would be something like @mastodon@github.com or @official@github.com?

How would you even run Mastodon on a domain that is also expected to be an actual website? AFAIK it doesn't even have a DNS record to point it at a different address.

Edit: Apparently the answer is "Webfinger". https://docs.joinmastodon.org/spec/webfinger/

It’s a good question. Does activitypub something like mx lookups or does it rely only on A/AAAA?

I want to run an AP server on my own domain so I can post from me@mydomain.tld but I want to retain my normal static homepage on my domain.tld…

I have a friend doing that on Masto.host using https://masto.host/mastodon-usernames-different-from-the-dom.... Works well.

> impersonating elon is now a ban-able offense

impersonating anyone is a "ban-able offense", and should have been from the get-go. there have been tens of dozens of accounts i've personally reported over the years. all were banned a few hours after. if you don't mention you're a parody expect people to report your account and to get a ban.

"To be fair", it always has been. For years there's been instances of verified accounts changing their name to someone else "as a bit" and getting hit with the ban hammer.

It's always been kind of wild that verified users can just change their username and keep the tick (of course, goes against the whole seasonal name thing twitter enjoys...)

A bit related: If you want to show the verified status for GitHub on your Mastodon profile, here is how to do it:

https://jan.wildeboer.net/2022/06/Quick-Fix-Verified-Mastodo...

Courtesy of https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jwildeboer

It's a problem, but for all the problems with Mastodon I try to think of the equivalent problems with email (since I think it's the analogous for federation). What keeps you from having github@example.com for your own domains?

Ultimately, email has a wider societal understanding that the domain doesn't necessarily do much in the way of identity verification like Twitter does even though they're both free to the public. Mastodon has more trouble with this because it looks more like Twitter than email.

I like their solution! every mark gets to be @mark and every jess can be @jess, as to which joe you are, just link to site you have control of to prove it.

It's just a matter of expectations and messaging to all the users they're onboarding all of a sudden, but email is a good analogy, in fact if you control your email domain and your own mastodon instance, they could be one in the same address!

Nothing, as you know, and many here (including me) do that or similar. It does occasionally confuse or upset the less tech-savvy 'github's who wonder why or how they're name is in your email address.

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