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OpenID: Aaron Hockley takes a stand and you benefit

Vancouver’s Aaron Hockley is fed up.

I’m going to take a bit of a stand. Effective immediately, I will no longer comment on tech blogs that don’t support OpenID for comment authentication.

And I, for one, really respect his taking this stance. I think it’s these small, self-admittedly “mostly insignificant” kinds of actions that make things happen. The journey of 1000 miles and whatnot.

Aaron makes a strong argument for every blog pursuing its own OpenID login for comments:

OpenID is a win-win for blog comments. It’s a win for the comment author, since it means less info to type. It’s a win for the blog owner, since it means the comments have a “real” identity behind them.

I mean, if you really want to be part of the conversation, shouldn’t you make it as easy as possible for others to join in the conversation?

Of course you should. And OpenID can help you do that.

And you—as a Portlander or Silicon Forester—should be more than embracing OpenID. You should be singing its praises from the rooftops, if only to support great companies like Vidoop, ConfIdent, and JanRain who are the forefront of OpenID development.

OpenID is like the Portland Trail Blazers of technology around here. Only better. Like the ’76-’77 Blazers. That’s right. You know what I’m talking about. The plucky young upstarts who win despite all odds.

And OpenID has more than a fighting chance. But it still needs the support of each and every one of us.

But what if it’s a technical issue that’s preventing your adoption? (Like me, for instance. I wrangled my OpenID WordPress implementation for hours before Chris O’Rourke was able to pinpoint the issue and help me resolve the problem.)

Well, you don’t have that excuse anymore. Because Aaron has offered to help:

And I’ll put my time where my mouth is: I’ll help you. If you follow those links above, and can’t figure it out, or you try it and it doesn’t work. I’ll help. Send me an e-mail. I want you to have OpenID.

I’m looking forward to using my OpenID to comment on your blog the next time I swing by.

So where’s that benefit for you? Right here, tiger

In fact, how about this? Let’s round up a list of all the Silicon Forest based blogs and services that support OpenID.

If you’re one of them, use your OpenID to comment below.

I’ll work on gathering a comprehensive list for posting. And then we’ll work on promoting your blog or service for being one of the ones who’s supporting OpenID.

Just as a way—albeit minor—of saying “Thank you for using OpenID.”

  1. I’m not sure the place you are getting your information, but great topic. I needs to spend some time studying more or figuring out more. Thanks for excellent information I was on the lookout for this information for my mission.

  2. 123bee: if you’re using WordPress, there’s a plugin called WP-OpenID that allows you to (among other things) enable OpenID for comments.

  3. give some tutorial for that my head going to bust

  4. hi how did u add openid in comments please may i know that

  5. […] last week’s post about taking a stand for OpenID, Kelly Guimont suggested a list of offenders; that is, tech blogs that don’t walk the OpenID walk. Here are four big […]

  6. […] Over on Silicon Florist, Kelly Guimont suggested we make a list of tech blogs that Don’t Get It. Perhaps a bunch of vocal techies can help these so-called Web 2.0 sites get with the times and support OpenID. I’m going to call out the following blogs as “Needs Improvement”: […]

  7. Excellent post Rick, we (Vidoop / ConfIdent) would be more than happy to field any OpenID questions as well. Please feel free to get in touch with us if you are having *any* issues (implementation, getting one, using one, etc.).

  8. @Alex Malinovich Absolutely agree on the implementation of OpenID for the Silicon Florist comments. It’s a conflict between my theme and the WP-OpenID plugin that I’m working to resolve.

    OpenID is working here, but the implementation is still currently not as elegant as I would like.

  9. I’ve been using OpenID to allow people to post comments on my blog easily for over a year now. Had a few minor hiccups getting the WordPress plugin working right, but it’s been running like a champ for months now. So you can count me in as a Me Too. 🙂

    P.S. I don’t like the wording in the text boxes for comments here. Two things that are marked as “required” that shouldn’t be, and an OpenID login box without the OpenID logo. But kudos for supporting OpenID anyway.

  10. OK, so I think I’ve got OpenID working. Let’s see if this works…

  11. Kelly said: “I’d like to see, more importantly, the list of those who can’t/won’t use OpenID and see what happens if we campaign to convince them to see the light.”

    That’s the next step. Expect that blog post on Monday.

  12. We use OpenID authentication exclusively for Treasurelicious. Initially we grappled with this choice but I prevailed. It has made it easier for us as developers and for our users as well.

    A great resource of other OpenID enabled sites is:
    https://www.myopenid.com/directory

    And of course don’t forget:
    http://www.treasurelicious.com/

  13. The Portvangelistas strongly support OpenID’s challenge to the continued oppression of disintegrated online authentication!

    We also support OpenID on http://portvangelista.com

  14. My blog at http://xolotl.org prefers OpenID authentication thanks to Drupal 5’s OpenID module.

    OpenID authentication is now in core in Drupal 6.
    http://drupal.org

  15. I admire this stance and when my new site is ready the first thing on it will be OpenID. Hopefully I can figure it out for myself. I’d like to see, more importantly, the list of those who can’t/won’t use OpenID and see what happens if we campaign to convince them to see the light. Power to the People!

  16. Interesting that the Blogger OpenID doesn’t correctly pass your name along. That’s too bad.

  17. Okay, I am posting this comment with OpenID. Easier? not sure. More secure? probably.

  18. Assuming this works as it should, you should see aaronhockley.com as the linked website. It’s called OpenID delegation, and solves the issue of the href linking to your own site instead of a 3rd party OpenID profile.

  19. …I say KUDOS!

    In many cases it’s a simple update and props to ahockley for volunteering to help those that might need some help. Now, let’s see how many take him up on the challenge, ehh?

  20. I very much would like to use OpenID on my Expression Engine blogs. However, last I checked, there was no official way to do this. I’m not interested in building a module or extension for it, though I would be surprised if someone isn’t working on it. I know they just demoed v.2 at SXSW – it might support OpenID, but I haven’t heard.

    I think I track Aaron on Twitter; I’ll have to ping him there.

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