Dylan FreedmanDec 22, 2022

Anyone familiar with the way Mastodon handles verifying URLs? At the Washington Post we're working on adding verified rel="me" and Mastodon links in our author profiles, but we're seeing mixed results on verification actually going through. It seems non-deterministic(?)

@dylan (me): works
@jeremybmerrill: does not work even though he's on the same server as me
@zubakskees : works
(+ more)

The author pages on the Post are identical in terms of linking back to Mastodon. #mastodon

Show threadRussDec 22, 2022

@dylan @jeremybmerrill @zubakskees

There are a variety of hiccups with link verification (see https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/22418 and linked issues).

@info @e_urq I don't suppose y'all could take a look at the logs for the fetch requests for Jeremy's verified link? I did a spot check on the linked page and it looks valid, if potentially a bit challenging to parse.

Website verification: add a */* fallback to the Accept request header for improved website compatibility · Issue #22418 · mastodon/mastodon

Steps to reproduce the problem Run a PHP site on Apache HTTP Server Add Options MultiViews to your .htaccess file, but don't add MultiviewsMatch Any and instead configure AddType application/x-...

GitHub
Show threadEvan Urquhart 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 22, 2022
@theruss @dylan @jeremybmerrill @zubakskees @info This is more technical than I go, but I've passed it along to team members who could help.
Show threadJeremy B. MerrillDec 22, 2022
@e_urq thanks! I also emailed y'all's group email this morning in hopes that maybe the server admins could check their own logs.
Show threadSimon Fondrie-TeitlerDec 22, 2022
@jeremybmerrill @e_urq have you tried removing and re-adding it? I know it's cached, so it's helpful to prompt it to recheck the site.
Show threadSimon Fondrie-TeitlerDec 22, 2022
@jeremybmerrill @e_urq what about linking to https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/jeremy-b-merrill/?cachebust ?
Show threadSimon Fondrie-TeitlerDec 22, 2022
@jeremybmerrill @e_urq (with the ?cachebust at the end)
Show threadJeremy B. Merrill
@simon @e_urq I'll give it a try, good idea
Dec 22, 2022 at 7:32pmWeb
Show threadSimon Fondrie-TeitlerDec 22, 2022
@jeremybmerrill @e_urq Seems like that still doesn't work. journa.host is on masto.host, which doesn't allow access to the logs enough to figure out of there's anything in there. Only theory I have right now is the post's site seems to delay returning information by 8 seconds or so if the user agent isn't a browser agent, which might be hitting a timeout.
Show threadSimon Fondrie-TeitlerDec 22, 2022
@jeremybmerrill I wonder if link previews work. https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/jeremy-b-merrill/
Show threadSimon Fondrie-TeitlerDec 22, 2022
@jeremybmerrill vs Dylan https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/dylan-freedman/
Dylan Freedman - The Washington Post

Dylan Freedman is a software engineer at The Washington Post with a focus on elections and campaign finance.

Dylan Freedman