The Scoop on OpenID and Blogger Comments
I have been looking into OpenId and it's connection with Blogger. I went straight to the source, thanks to Janeywan for sending me the link to OpenID Commenting on Blogger Buzz.
First, what does OpenID do? It allows you to take your identity with you, proving that you own a particular URL. Isn't that simple? Yes. And a big surprise is that you may already have an OpenID. If not, don't fret. There are several options to get one:If you haven't set up OpenID, you can still link to your blog — or any webpage, for that matter — by using the standard tag inside the comment form.
From Blogger Buzz
- myOpenID which is what I used.
- claimID
- myvidoop
- myID.net
- VeriSign Labs
next to their names. No more comment spoofing.To enable this on your blog, go to your Dashboard | Settings | Comments | Who can Comment | check Anyone or Registered Users.
This is from myOpenID on using your own URL:
You can use your own URL as your OpenID, and still use myOpenID as your OpenID server. To set this up, create an account, and add the following markup into your page's <head<> section:
<link rel="openid.server"Or another method...which I decided to use:
href="http://www.myopenid.com/server" />
<link rel="openid.delegate"
href="http://youraccount.myopenid.com/" />
<link rel="openid2.local_id"
href="http://youraccount.myopenid.com" />
<link rel="openid2.provider"
href="http://www.myopenid.com/server" />
<meta http-equiv="X-XRDS-Location"
content="http://www.myopenid.com/xrds?username=youraccount.myopenid.com" />
<link href='http://www.myopenid.com/server' rel='openid.server'/> <!-- For delegating OpenID v1.x-->In both examples put your OpenID username where it says your account.
<link href='http://youraccount.myopenid.com' rel='openid.delegate'/> <!-- For delegating OpenID v1.x-->
<meta content='http://youraccount.myopenid.com/xrds' http-equiv='X-XRDS-Location'/> <!-- For delegating OpenID v2.x-->;
That's it. You can now use your own URL to log into OpenID enabled sites with myOpenID as your OpenID server.
Now, while I have your attention. Big Bad Blogger apologized for removing the URL field from the comments form prematurely. And they regreted making it appear that they were trying to force you into getting a Google Account. Don't you all feel bad for talking the way you did about them? Shame on you.
Labels:
Classic Blogger,
Comments,
Open ID
11 Comments:
It was a bit of a hassle but I implemented OpenID and added the code. Now I can comment on Blogger blogs - mission accomplished!
@Neena, It is a hassle, I agree. But not impossible, and it is a one time thing.
In the long run, it is a good thing.
thanks annie for sharing this. Tis is very important for the blog owner.
Last night I noticed that they have added a url field to the nickname option because of all of all the complaints.
@MrBrownThumb, I think they are just trying to make comments a better place...not a spam magnet. And they are working their way through it. Like many of us, they are not perfect but try none the less.
I like that addition of the URL field. So will millions of other bloggers.
I'm testing the URL for Buttermilk Clouds even though I'm using my blogger sign in just to see what happens.
Even though I never liked the OpenID thing and think they should concentrate on other fixes for blogger I didn't think they were doing anything bad. My problem was that it made things harder for people outside of blogger to comment.
A couple of days ago I wrote a post titled "Don't Quit Your Day Blogs" where I addressed the complaints/conspiracy claims some professional writers in my area were making about OpenID and Blogger.
After getting into "arguments" about it and having to defend something I didn't like or want I find it funny that they've added the URL field and have apologized. They should have just left it like it was to begin with and avoided the bad PR and having to look silly when they put the url field back.
I'm glad I found you/BlogU. I have so much to learn and am excited to get started.
p.s. your instructions in the comments window have a small typo that makes the instruction a bit hard to understand. It says: To add a link to in this comment,
I think the word 'to' needs to come out, yes?
@cathy, glad you found my blog too. And you are so right about the 'to'! I need a copy editor, don't you think? I read and re-read before I post anything, so you would think I would catch something as obvious as that. But, no. My eyes just scan over mistakes like it wasn't there.
BTW, your blog is great! I got to reading and just lost track of time.
I first thought the open url id would not be good enough but it is actually nice. Thanks for the information to share with us.
While authenticated comments is a great idea, I do not think I will be using OpenID to make comments with. I will of course allow the use of OpenID for others to use.
I have several blogs/websites and would have to have an OpenID account for each. This would not be practical in my opinion.
Allowing for commenting with a link to your blog/website and a varied choice of 'linking text' is appealing to me. I used 'Tips 4 Blogspot' in this case, but I could easily have made the linking text 'blogger tips' instead. Being strapped down with one Url and Nickname via OpenID does not quite take the cake.
As a side issue, not related to OpenID but close, anyone using their Blogger Profile for the Author Link is kind of defeating the purpose of DoFollow commenting. If the blogger has hacked the template to remove Nofollow attribute from the Author Link, the Blogger Profile page does not. The links to all of the blogs in your Profile are Nofollow and has no value link-wise.
openid is very important for the development of blogs and web 2.0 but seems that the marketing side of it was not really doing well.