Warn user about changing username on federated instances

#1

As suggested by wakest on issue #226:

I just noticed that you can change your username on writefreely and thought that was quite strange since its the first software I have noticed in the fediverse that has this ability. If I am following a writefreely account from mastodon and I change my username, I am not automatically following the new username, and I am still following the old one. so if I change my username 10 times I can separately follow 10 different accounts. I am unsure of all the repercussions of this but I can think of many. I think at the very least there should be a warning that changing the username is not recommended due to some incompatibilities or issues with federation between other parts of the fediverse.

was playing with the new instance https://scream.today (running writefreely v0.11.2)

Master account/blog vs secondary blog changability
#2

Thanks for starting this thread. Been meaning to document exactly how this process currently affects blogs.

Just checking now and Mastodon still sees the old account I had made that only existed for a few minutes even though it was made a over a week ago. I am not sure if this is a Mastodon bug or a writefreely bug but either way we should figure it out.

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yesterday@scream.today was the one that only lasted a few minutes and then was changed back to yesterdays@scream.today (with an s)

#3

Thanks for bringing this to our attention @wakest! I made a pull request on the WriteFreely documentation that includes a new page on blog federation with this warning. It should be on the official docs soon but feel free to take a look at it and make further suggestions:

Here is the federation file for reference.

#4

Hi @wakest! Just wanted to let you know that we created a Federation page in the WriteFreely docs that warns users about changing their user name on federated instances.

Check the page here and feel free to suggest changes & additions in the docs repo.

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#5

Thanks for doing this. I just filed another bug about this in your repo related to the same issue today actually. There are some serious issues that need to be figured out with how federation between WriteFreely and Mastodon currently work. Would love to help figure out how we can find the necessary information to fix this be it from the Masto side or otherwise.

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#6

No problem! Thanks for filing the bug. I am going to repost @matt’s response to the issue here:

Thanks for the report!

I’m not sure if fediverse platforms support updating post URIs (most completely ignore the Update activity), so the right fix could mean sending out ugly ID-based URLs for posts in the fediverse instead of their slug-based URLs.

Another solution (probably a good middle-ground) would be to send out ID + slug (Medium style) URLs to the fediverse, and only parse the ID on the WF end to retrieve the post. That would keep semi-pretty URLs, at least.

Otherwise, the least-ideal solution would be to just track slug changes and redirect people on the WF side. This isn’t ideal, because as soon as a new post uses an old (redirecting) slug, that redirect gets removed.

We’ll need to see how much work this’ll involve and then we can get it in.

We’d love your help with this federation stuff. A great first step I can think of is initiating the conversation on Social Hub. That would be a great first step to at least start talking about fediverse platforms supporting updating post URI’s.

But please continue what you’re doing, using WriteFreely & noting things that come up. Also want to mention that I am enjoying your posts on your daily blog too (others should check it out). Thanks for your contributions @wakest!

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