user@domain URNs, independent from OpenID spec

[Martin Atkins]

Mario Salzer wrote:
> OpenID as it stands now verifies homepage addresses and
> expects sites to use that as user identifiers. This may
> be all fine and sufficient in the blog world and comment
> forms, but won't lead to widespread use elsewhere.
> 
> As other people have noted earlier, the only meaningful
> syntax for average users are "user at domain" identifiers.
> Therefore I'd like to make a proposal, which can be used
> with or without OpenID and would be just a second means
> to make an URL from whatever the user entered.
> 

I'd argue that all of these identifiers are opaque to users anyway. They 
just type what they're told. How many non-technical users understand why 
they have to type .com after they type livejournal?