[apps-discuss] Webfinger: acct "link relation"

["Paul E. Jones" <[e-mail]>]

Folks,

 

In the latest Webfinger draft, we introduced a "acct" link relation named
"acct" (see Section 6).  The intent with that link relation was to allow for
one to inform a webfinger client that a user's account information may be
retrieved elsewhere.  I believe this will be important, since a user might
have more than one account and this might serve as a means of associating
them.  Certainly, it would be a way of retrieving information from those
other accounts automatically.

 

Perhaps calling the new link relation "acct" is too restrictive, though.  If
one used Webfinger to query other kinds of information other than a user's
account, there may still be a need/desire to refer the Webfinger client to
other resources.

 

What do you think about changing this section such that the link relation is
renamed to "seealso"?  This would still be useful when querying an acct URI,
but would also be useful when querying any URI since it  is more generic.

 

Do note that "seealso" would be different than the "alternate" link
relation.  It would not refer to alternative information, but would refer to
supplemental information.  In practice, the supplemental information may be
the more informative since the bulk of the information related to a user
might be held under a different account.

 

Your thoughts?

 

Paul