The possibilities of openID

When I first heard of openID, I taught, great that's going to come in handy. But when you think about it the possibilities are much more than just a way to skip the register page. It makes your network of trusted people (friends) much usable in every web applications. I'm going to show you what the real power of openID is, using my wordpress blog as an example.

This is an example how a new technology like openID can have huge online social consequences. I like that! :)

But cut the crap let's get our hands dirty:

1. the problem

Well everyone has a lot of comment spam, the longer you blog, the more spam you get. Askimet catches lots of spam, still this remains a huge problem.

2. the solution

Social Whitelisting (idea from Tom Coates):
I trust most of my blog readers, because I know them and they hate comment spam as much as I do. I want them to be able to moderate comments on this blog. If they see a spam comment, they should be able to delete it. So now my readers can sign in to my blog with their openID. I get an email, I check if I know this person and if I trust him. If yes, I give him the rights to moderate comments. It's as simple as that. So if you like to test it out, simply login and I'll give you the rights to moderate my comments. Just to give you something extra, you will also be able to edit my published posts, jep, I make a lot of spelling mistakes ;-) AND make drafts.

3. How ?

I used 2 wordpress plugins:

  1. openID plugin
  2. role manager plugin

It still needs some tweaking. The role manager plugin is acting a bit strange. But I'll figure it out.

4. Next steps

This is great and it works, but still I need to approve every new member manually. I want to be able to have a list of people who I trust, not only to moderate my blog but also to view my private photos at flickr for example. How can I do this? Well I can make a list of people who I always trust by making a group on jyte, people in my group will always be given the correct rights.
This is a plugin I plan to write, when somebody signs in on my blog with an openID, I check if he's part of my network of trusted people (with jytes API) and give him the permissions he needs to moderate comments.

With jyte you get the possibility to decentralize your friends list. Make your friends list cross-platform and give them the permissions they need to make your life a bit easier.
It's one step closer to a decentralised social network and that, my friends, is the real power behind openID.

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