Re: [Uri-review] Registration request for "at" URI scheme

Hi Folks,

The most common theme of feedback here has been to consider a different 
scheme name, such as “atp://” or “atproto://”.

Some arguments in favor “at://” are: compactness; visually distinct 
compared to 3-letter schemas; an intuitive connection to the social 
interaction model; existing real-world deployment and use with AT 
Protocol.

Some illustrative in-line uses:

“Our atproto account is at://example.com”
“Our website is example.com”

The “://” seems to help a good deal with disambiguation.

As Paul mentioned, we do intend to use and share full AT URIs in several 
contexts, including visual display to end users and copy/pasting between 
applications. For example, we are currently rolling out a “custom feeds” 
feature, in which individual feed algorithms are indicated by an AT-URI 
(pointing to a repo record). It isn’t clear whether browsers would ever 
support pasting an AT-URI into the location bar, but there will be 
analogous interfaces where AT-URIs are pasted into search boxes and other 
form elements.

It seems hard to know ahead of time whether the wordplay with “@” would 
increase or decrease confusion overall in the long long run. Confusion is 
a real design concern to be weighed against compactness and cleverness.

We are not proposing that “at://” be fully interchangeable with “@”. A 
string prefixed with an “@” is not a URI; it is an informal way to refer 
to accounts across many protocols and applications. We will not store 
handles or DIDs with an “@” prefix in our protocol (in API responses, 
persisted records, database tables, etc). In the context of handle-only 
AT-URIs, the compactness is a particular benefit.

-–bryan

On Wed, 10 May 2023, Paul Frazee wrote:

> Why don't I get a writeup done to clear up questions (I apologize for not
> leading with one). I'll address what you're suggesting/asking about,
> Melvin, and some of the other questions. While I'm working on that, feel
> free to drop in more questions and I'll include them in the writeup.
>
> Paul
>
> On Wed, May 10, 2023 at 1:29 PM Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> st 10. 5. 2023 v 19:29 odesílatel Paul Frazee <pfrazee@gmail.com> napsal:
>>
>>> The idea is indeed that at:// could user-facing in the same way http://
>>> is. The intent is to express a social address so that I could be at://
>>> pfrazee.com to provide a social identity and http://pfrazee.com to
>>> provide a website. We're hoping to make the scheme intuitive to people, as
>>> it has a clear connection to the "@pfrazee.com" convention.
>>>
>>> I can understand the hesitance around what we're proposing. It's a common
>>> word and assigning it to an early project is a big ask. I'd like to keep
>>> the scheme because I believe it's user-friendly, but I also don't want to
>>> push something that people aren't comfortable with.
>>>
>>> My question from here is, is there a way forward to address the concerns
>>> around this proposal, or do folks feel like this proposal is a non-starter?
>>> If there is a path forward, how can we help get there?
>>>
>>
>> Potential Approach
>>
>> I've noticed similarities between Webfinger, which aimed to return JSON
>> from a DNS-like identifier with an "@" symbol, and your current situation.
>> Webfinger eventually established the acct: URI scheme. However, in 2012,
>> Mark Nottingham suggested an alternative lookup method, such as
>> ".well-known/webfinger?user=bob@host".
>>
>> You might consider registering an "atprotocol" under .well-known and use
>> the following format: ".well-known/atprotocol?user=<atproto_identifier>".
>> If the dereferencing is handled by the BGS rather than individual hosts,
>> perhaps a simple lookup would suffice, eliminating the need for a new URI
>> scheme.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>>> On Wed, May 10, 2023 at 10:54 AM Graham Klyne <gk@ninebynine.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> A small clarification to Eliot's comment: the *provisional* registry is
>>>> FCFS, but there is still a possibility for a hold-up come the time this is
>>>> advanced to a permanent registration.  The good news is that by raising
>>>> this here and now (rather than waiting for a permanent registration
>>>> review), there's a better chance that a consensus on this issue can emerge
>>>> before the protocol is very widely deployed.  So, thank you for doing that!
>>>>
>>>> #g
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 08/05/2023 09:18, Eliot Lear wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Bryan,
>>>>
>>>> As Alex mentioned, I wasn't referring to URI schemes, but rather that
>>>> the word "at" is not descript, reused in many different contexts, from
>>>> Austria to a preposition, to a scheduling command in UNIX to various other
>>>> acronym expansions.  My understanding is that the registry is FCFS, and so
>>>> this is *advice*.  Whatever you choose you'll be stuck with.  If you
>>>> even added an extra character or two that could make more clear what this
>>>> is, you may find it helpful later on.
>>>>
>>>> Eliot
>>>> On 08.05.23 00:14, bnewbold@robocracy.org wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi Eliot,
>>>>
>>>> We did do both some general search, and checked against the URI schema
>>>> registry when starting work on the protocol, and are not aware of any
>>>> problematic existing use or conflicts the the use of the URI scheme name.
>>>>
>>>> The closest confusion we are aware of with 'at' is the Hayes AT command
>>>> originally used with modems. We are unaware of any URI scheme specifically
>>>> for the Hayes AT command set, and while that command set is still in broad
>>>> use, it does not seem likely to start using one now.
>>>>
>>>> "at" matches our protocol name ("AT" stands for "Authenticated
>>>> Transfer"). There is a bit of wordplay going on with "@" (the "at symbol"),
>>>> which is used as a prefix convention in social media to indicate a user
>>>> handle. AT Protocol is primarily used for social media applications (at
>>>> least, that is the focus at present).
>>>>
>>>> As precedent, there are several other two-character URI schemes in the
>>>> current registry.
>>>>
>>>> URIs starting with "at://" are already being used by several
>>>> implementations of the AT Protocol. At this point it seems like a change
>>>> would only add to confusion.
>>>>
>>>> --bryan
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, 7 May 2023, Eliot Lear wrote:
>>>>
>>>> As another casual observer, can I suggest that you use a slightly more
>>>> descriptive scheme name?  "at" is heavily overloaded, and a name that
>>>> provides at least a guess what this is will serve the user better.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Uri-review mailing listUri-review@ietf.orghttps://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/uri-review
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Graham Klynemailto:gk@ninebynine.org <gk@ninebynine.org>http://www.ninebynine.org
>>>> Mastodon: @gklyne@indieweb.social
>>>> GitHub/Skype: @gklyne
>>>>
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>>
>