Ryan Tate Tabloid: On Webmention

On September 18, I wrote that I was surprised blogging platforms don't detect when one of your posts is mentioned elsewhere and notify you, in the manner of Twitter's mentions pane. Andy Sylvester, a developer, helpfully pointed me at a w3c recommendation called Webmention, which calls itself "a simple way to notify any URL when you mention it on your site.#

Well, I guess I find Webmention not simple enough :-)#

In my original post, I linked the HTTP referrer header, because it seems like this should be enough for someone to create a mentions pane with. Browsers supported this for years. It told the destination web server which page you came from, if you clicked a link on that page. But apparently the only people who really used it were advertising brokers and others who prey on privacy, so now it's been basically disabled, browsers only send the top level domain that linked to you, not the path to the specific post / content. #

And if you want this functionality that was baked into the web from the start, you have to rebuild the infrastructure yourself with something like Webmentions. I find it a little depressing.#

Oh well. #

Anyway, silver lining, if I understand correctly, a website can opt-in to real referrers again, setting a header that will cause browsers to send the full path when a user clicks a link on that site. That seems easier than setting up the sending of Webmentions, but doesn't help you properly detect inbound mentions.#

PS Webmentions were created presumably because they are richer. The spec says "a response can be an RSVP to an event, an indication that someone 'likes' another post, a 'bookmark' of another post, and many others." Sounds complicated.#

PPS Andy Sylvester has a Drummer blog. Thank you Andy.#