rel-me

2016-11-22T15:09:26Z

Bkardell: Original link url was broken because google shifts but I found the same talk on youtube

<entry-title>rel="me"</entry-title>
;short URL
:http://ufs.cc/w/relme

[[XFN]] 1.1 introduced the "me" [[rel]] value which is used to indicate profile equivalence and for [[identity-consolidation]].

== example ==
<code>rel="me"</code> is used on hyperlinks from one page about a person to other pages about that same person.

For example, [[User:Tantek|Tantek]]'s [http://tantek.com/ home page] has (markup simplified)

<source lang=html4strict><a href="https://twitter.com/t" rel="me">@t</a></source>

And his Twitter profile itself has (markup simplified)

<source lang=html4strict><a href="http://tantek.com/" rel="me">http://tantek.com/</a></source>

Thus establishing a bi-directional rel-me link and confirming that the two URLs represent the same person.

Publishers can use the [http://gmpg.org/xfn/creator XFN creator] form to create rel-me hyperlinks.

== screencast and videos ==
Watch some short videos:
* [http://www.sixapart.com/static_news/opening_social_graph/xfn_links/xfn_links.html David Recordon's excellent *30 second* explanation of XFN rel="me"].
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabCylbapuM Brad Fitzpatrick explains rel="me" and more XFN].
* [http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/technology/1611/plaxo-to-ship-online-identity-aggregator-based-on-microformats Joseph Smarr's whiteboard explanation] of rel="me" as implemented in the Plaxo online identity aggregator.
Longer:
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2WzVSVxrrI Gavin Bell on "What is your provenance?"] (40 minutes) - provides a much broader discussion of the problem statement of who is a person on the Web, and starting at about 0:07:30 explains how [[hCard]] + rel="me" helps solve this problem.

== tutorials ==
[http://ungeekdapo.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/a-simple-data-portability-project-or-is-it/ A simple data portability project or is it] rel=me summary by Bob Ngu

== domain verification ==
rel=me is the standard way to check that a website belongs to a user on a 3rd party site.

* read a user's website that they entered into their 3rd party site profile
* check for a rel=me hyperlink from their website to their 3rd party site profile
* if such a rel=me hyperlink is found, then the user has proven that they control that personal website sufficient to put a link back to their 3rd party site profile, and thus domain verification succeeds.

If you're the implementer of such a 3rd party site with user profiles, implement the above to implement a personal website domain verification feature.

== rel-me-auth ==
[[RelMeAuth]] is a proposed open standard for using [[rel-me]] links to profiles on [[OAuth]] supporting services to authenticate via either those profiles or your own site.

In short it is a combination of '''domain verification''' as documented above, and OAuth authorization on the 3rd party site that the user's domain links to.

Read more about how to implement [[RelMeAuth]] and [[web sign-in]].

== implementations ==
Notable Sites:
* '''[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1229920 Google]''' uses reciprocal rel=me links for domain verification, which it also uses for independent site [[rel-author]] support.
* '''[http://blog.app.net/2013/04/29/announcing-domain-verification/ App.net]''' implements rel-me for officially connecting your domain to your app.net account, as well as publishing rel-me on your site.

Services:
* '''[http://indieauth.com/ IndieAuth]''' is perhaps the most comprehensive [[rel-me]] implementation, using it to implement [[RelMeAuth]] and a superset of [[web-sign-in]] that is focused on [http://indiewebcamp.com/ independent websites].

[[wordpress-plugins|WordPress plugins]]:
* [http://blog.maybe5.com/?page_id=94 Social Links Wordpress plugin] - supports rel-me links to other services
* [http://code.l0g.in/about-me/ About Me plugin] (on github) - supports creation of an About Me page with rel-me links to other profiles.

=== advocacy ===
Advocating rel=me support can be done a few ways, if a site has:
* user profiles but no "website" field - ask them to add a "website" field and mark it up with rel=me.
* a "website" field on profiles - ask it to support publishing rel=me
* a notion of "verification" or "verified" profiles - ask it to do so via confirming reciprocal rel=me
* login/sign-in - ask it to support [[RelMeAuth]] with a [[Web sign-in]] user interface.

Current requests:
* [https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/2477 Gittip: Add "website" profile field #2477] - requested 2014-06-07 by Aaron Parecki.
* ...

== examples in the wild ==
Examples of sites publishing rel=me support, e.g. on user profiles.

See:
* [[hcard-xfn-supporting-friends-lists#Services_with_XFN_rel.3D.22me.22_to_multiple_external_sites|services supporting XFN rel=me]]

== see also ==
* [[hcard-xfn-supporting-friends-lists#Services_with_XFN_rel.3D.22me.22_to_multiple_external_sites|services that support rel="me"]]
* [[rel-me-faq]]
* [[xfn]]
* [[rel]]
* [[social network portability]]
* [http://gmpg.org/xfn/11 XFN 1.1 profile]

Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

rel-me