strange_complex | Entries tagged with openid

Before I changed my LJ username, I wondered what this was going to do to the old OpenID presence based on it which I had on Dreamwidth. Nobody knew for sure, so in the end I decided to find out by just doing it and seeing what happened.

I can now report that the answer is that I have lost control of the old OpenID, and have been allocated a completely new profile by Dreamwidth. Even if I try to log in as "purple-pen.livejournal.com", the system interprets me as "strange-complex.livejournal.com". No-one else can get into it either, so it isn't a security risk. It is just an orphan identity which I can no longer access.

That's not particularly troublesome to me, because I didn't have a particularly highly developed Dreamwidth presence anyway. I had used the old OpenID for occasional commenting, a handful of DW users had granted it full access to their journals, and one person had used it to subscribe to my LJ from her DW reading page. I've effectively lost all those connections now, but since there weren't that many of them, I will live.

But obviously for people with a more highly-developed OpenID-based Dreamwidth presence, losing it all because they had changed their LJ name could be a major pain in the ass. So I'm writing this post about it partly so that it can be used as a reference-point for anyone in the future wanting to know what will happen to their OpenID if they rename their livejournal.

I'm also writing this because I am going to need to ask anyone who wants me to be able to see and comment on their friendslocked DW content, or anyone who wants to read my LJ from DW, to re-grant me access to your DW journal or re-subscribe to me as appropriate.

In practice, I think the only DW journals I've ever actually commented on are

miss_s_b's and

matgb's - and I see that

miss_s_b has already updated her access / subscription links, so thank you sweetie! But for the record, these are the other DW users who had previously granted me access to their journals:

ashavah
dadi
gylfinir
katsmeat
lefaym
matgb
mia_oia
moominlou
mother_bones
nmg
nwhyte
swisstone

If those people, or indeed anyone else, want me to have OpenID access to their DW journals, could you please update your permissions? Thanks! :-)

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(Well, or for anyone who knows anything about how OpenID works, really.)

As mentioned in my last entry, I am planning to rename my LJ. However, I am very unsure as to what effect this will have on the OpenID that is based on my current LJ name, and particularly the Dreamwidth presence I have which allows me to comment on some of your journals.

For the record, I plan to use the 'forwarding' version of the LJ rename service, so my old LJ username shouldn't be vulnerable to getting bought up by someone else who can then take over my old OpenID. But other than that, I really don't know what effect the rename will have. So far as I'm concerned it could be anything between my previous OpenID completely disappearing at one end, and the system being so clever that it recognises my rename and updates the OpenID too at the other (though I really doubt that the latter will happen).

If any Dreamwidth-enabled people actually know what will happen, and are able to comment on it, I'd be really grateful. I haven't been able to find out anything via Google that would help me to predict what it will be, so it may just end up being a great big leap into the unknown. At worst, I can always just abandon the old OpenID and set up a new one linked to my new LJ name. But if that's how it ends up being, here at least is a heads-up letting you know to look out for me under the new name.

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