[ticker-dev] on the use of user@foo

[David Arnold]

-->"Martin" == Wanicki, Martin <Martin.Wanicki at Australia.Boeing.com> writes:

(quoting from private mail with permission)

<...>

  Martin> I realise that i'm entering an attribute naming conversation
  Martin> now, because I totally agree with the requirement.

getting the names right is important ;-)


  Martin> User: "d"
  Martin> User-Name: "da947456 at yahoo.com"
  Martin> User-Location: "monash"

  Martin> or another example ..

  Martin> User: "m at boeing"
  Martin> User-Name: "martin.wanicki at boeing.com"
  Martin> User-Location: "dstc.hq"

section 3.1 of the spec v0.4.1 calls the unique name a ``userID''.
maybe that's actually the best name for it?

  User-Id: "da947456 at yahoo.com"
  User-Name: "d"
  User-Location: "monash"

another option might be User-Alias (for the name to be displayed) ?


  Martin> I'm not sure if one alias is sufficient for people, perhaps
  Martin> some folks may want to do something like

  Martin> User: "foo at bar"
  Martin> User-Name: "anoymous.coward"
  Martin> User-Location: "home"

  Martin> I'm implying here that someone who may have a persona very
  Martin> well known as "anoymous.coward" may want to be seen as
  Martin> "foo at bar"

mostly as an aside: in anonymous mode, clients probably shouldn't
publish presence information.

more on track though, if the string to be displayed has an `@' symbol
in it, what are you proposing that we do with the Location value?

i'd be tempted to ban `@' from both the requested display name and the
location, and have clients display the presentity as (in a bogus
pseudo-code)

  if Location and User-Alias:
      display_string = User-Alias at Location
  elif User-Alias and not Location:
      display_string = User-Alias
  elif not User-Alias and Location:
      display_string = "Anonymous at Location"
  else:
      display_string = User-Id

i think Presence-Info notifications without the User-Id should be
ignored.


  Martin> no one really knows (for this examples purposes) who
  Martin> "anoymous.coward" is but we do know that an entity most
  Martin> often known as "anoymous.coward" is to be referred to as
  Martin> "foo at bar" in presence and or tickertape.

i'm happy for people to use a UUID/GUID (hashed or raw), or some other
form of globally-unique identifier if they wish their real identity to
be anonymous, but their presentity to be consistent.





d