RussNov 20, 2022

I have a request.

Bad actors will soon figure out - if they haven't already - that setting up impersonations of important organizations now will allow them to set off an explosion of chaos and confusion at a time of their choosing.

So if you run an account for an organization (especially #LGBTQ), please set up link verification between your Mastodon account profile and your organization's website.

If not, please boost.

Instructions are here under "Link Verification":
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/profile/

Setting up your profile - Mastodon documentation

Get started with your new account.

Show threadSheenagh PughNov 20, 2022
@theruss
Have to say, I read the instructions and was totally baffled. I don't get what "rel=me attribute" means, and "Since 4.0: the hostname does not change after IDN normalization" is Greek to me! I just couldn't work out what to do, so have done nothing. Mastodon does assume folk know more about tech stuff than most of us do.
Show threadRussNov 20, 2022

@sheenaghpugh
Sorry for the headache! The gist of it is this:

Your Mastodon profile is https://mastodon.scot/@sheenaghpugh

If *I* wanted to put a link to your profile on *my* website, the HTML for that would look like:

<a href="https://mastodon.scot/@sheenaghpugh">Sheenagh</a>

But if *you* wanted to link to your own profile and say "yup, that's me!", you'd add rel="me" (get it? me?) to that HTML tag:

<a href="https://mastodon.scot/@sheenaghpugh" rel="me">Sheenagh</a>

That way, your profile and website vouch for each other.

Show threadSheenagh PughNov 20, 2022
@theruss
So does that mean the link to my website and blog in my mastodon profile would also need the rel="me" thing in them?
Show threadJernej Simončič �
@sheenaghpugh @theruss You need the rel="me" link on any site you want to show as verified in your profile.
Nov 20, 2022 at 11:37pmWeb