Add a "Fediverse" URL for profiles

[jamietanna]

My website uses a Fediverse-compatible app, https://fed.brid.gy/ to bridge between my website and the Fediverse.

I noticed that my Mastodon link in my profile was resulting in a 404 link, as I had set @www.jvt.me@www.jvt.me (which is a valid Fediverse profile), which Changelog redirects to https://www.jvt.me/@www.jvt.me.

(I've since set up a redirect to correctly point folks from there to a separate page)

This would also be useful for folks on different Fediverse tooling, but do not conform to the username -> URL remapping that Mastodon does.

For instance @ols@yeet.ols.wtf remaps to (404ing) https://yeet.ols.wtf/ols whereas Ols' profile page is at https://yeet.ols.wtf/u/ols.

This would allow folks to use Mastodon @ profile-to-URL remapping, or choose to use a full URL if they wanted.

[jerodsanto]

(This is a confusing mess, if you ask me.)

Is there a document somewhere that explains exactly how this all works? So that people can enter a "fediverse_handle" (which we use for programmatic @ mentioning sometimes) that we can reliably convert into a "fediverse_url" that doesn't 404 once in awhile?

[jamietanna]

I'm pretty sure https://webfinger.net/spec/ is the spec behind this - this allows you to take @www.jvt.me@www.jvt.me and that resolves the URL that the person is at