Userhandle-Mapping

A problem we repeatedly face at Sociabli is user handles on different platforms.

If you offer a service that allows you to post something on Mastodon and then mirror that post on another network, you inevitably run into the problem of user handles.

If I mention a user on Mastodon, the mention no longer works when mirroring on Bluesky. Even if the user has an account on both networks, the format of the user handles is different.

We've spent a long time thinking about how to solve this, and we always end up with some kind of user handle mapping.

The idea is to offer a service where you can log in with your social media accounts and link them together. We only store the respective handles. So we know that the user @mauricerenck@mastodon.online belongs to bsky.social/@mauricerenck.

When we crosspost with Sociabli, we can exchange these user handles. So, if I post something on Mastodon and mention @markschmeiser@mastodon.social, we convert this mention on Bluesky to @mark-schmeiser.bsky.social. This way, the user is mentioned on both networks.

Of course, this assumes that we have this data and that as many people as possible link their handles. Therefore, we believe that we shouldn't integrate this feature directly into Sociabli, but rather offer it as a separate service. Similar to Gravatar, which was originally very closely tied to WordPress but is now used everywhere. In addition to the ability to link your own accounts, we could also offer an API that allows you to read these linked accounts.

This way, with Sociabli, we're not the only ones who benefit from this data; everyone can access it. The big challenge here will likely be keeping the API stable and somehow restricting access so it doesn't result in a major DDoS attack. So, there have to be limits, and they also have to be affordable.

Before we start development, we need to double-check whether we might have simply overlooked such a service. There are so many services out there. So if anyone knows of something that meets these requirements, I would appreciate a comment. Otherwise, we'll probably get started on it soon, and I'll certainly report on the development here from time to time.

Update

After I wrote this blog post, this one came in via email: https://blog.anew.social/bridging-identity-with-account-links/ There are already efforts to create a standard. That's a great idea. I'm not sure yet if it's intuitive enough for users, but I'll keep an eye on it and see what we can do with it.