21d54452a0
Moved around a few TODOs. Linked to docs in the foot menu better. Added a specification for the openmicroblogging standard. darcs-hash:20080522172006-84dde-060372ec90444faf0e3453229cfd33aceaf28e4a.gz
324 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
324 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
===============================
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OpenMicroBlogging specification
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===============================
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Version 0.1
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Purpose
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=======
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To allow users of one microblogging service to publish notices to
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users of another service, given the other users' permission.
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Enabling technologies
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=====================
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Depends on OAuth 1.0, YADIS 1.0.
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We piggy-back additional information onto these protocols to pass
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microblogging information back and forth.
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Terminology
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===========
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microblogging service
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undefined.
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user
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undefined.
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listen
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to allow a remote service to send notices to the user's local
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service on a remote user's behalf.
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listener
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the person listening.
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listenee
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the user sending notices.
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remote service
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the listenee's service.
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local service
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the listener's service.
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profile URL
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"home" URL for the listener, typically their profile page on a
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microblogging site.
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nickname
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An alphanumeric short name for a person, 1-64 characters.
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identifier URI
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A globally unique and unchanging identifying URI for a user.
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Need not be an URL. [*]_
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notice URI
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A unique and unchanging identifier for a notice. Need not be an
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URL. [*]_
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.. [*] May be the profile URL, if it's defined not to change or be
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re-used. The profile URL of some services includes the nickname,
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and some let the user change his/her nickname. This user's profile
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URL may change from 'http://example.net/~john' to
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'http://example.net/~johnsmith' A tag URI, like
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'tag:example.net,2008:user:1' may be more appropriate here.
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.. [*] IWBNI the notice URI is used everywhere the notice is
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published; for example, in any RSS feeds.
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Initiation
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==========
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The user submits their profile URL to the remote service somehow --
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for example, with an HTML form on the remote service's Web site.
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Discovery
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=========
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The remote service recovers a YADIS document from the profile URL, as
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described in YADIS 1.0.
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The remote service looks for a service of this type:
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http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1
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The service must include the following 5 URLs. [*]_
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omb:requestToken
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Request Token URL, as in OAuth 1.0
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omb:userAuthorization
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User Authorization URL, as in OAuth 1.0
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omb:accessToken
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Access Token URL, as in OAuth 1.0
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omb:postNotice
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Post Notice URL, as defined below.
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omb:updateProfile
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Update Profile URL, as defined below.
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It must also include the following URI:
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omb:identifier
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identifier URI for the user with this profile URL.
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Here, omb: is the namespace prefix for:
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http://openmicroblogging.org/xmlns/0.1
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The YADIS URI defined for the service can be ignored.
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.. [*] I decided to use a separate namespace with 5 elements to enable
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having different providers for general OAuth and specific OµB. A
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future version of this document may have a mode that allows a
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single URL defined in the <URI> element with an additional URL
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parameter like 'action=requesttoken', 'action=userauthorization' or
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something similar. But that simplifies the YADIS doc at the expense
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of the rest of the protocol.
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Authorization
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=============
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The remote service must go through the OAuth 1.0 dance to get
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authorization to post notices and update profiles.
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In all OAuth, the consumer key should be blank (''), unless the remote
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server and local service have negotiated another key. Such negotiation
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is out-of-scope for this document, and we assume an "open" network of
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microblogging services. But if you want to have that kind of network,
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do it with this key.
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The remote service MUST do OAuth for every new listener, regardless of
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whether they've already received authorization for posting to the
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given postNotice URL. See `Posting a Notice`_ below.
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Request token
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-------------
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The remote service uses the defined requestToken URL to get a request
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token.
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In the request token HTTP request, the remote service MUST send the
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following additional parameter(s):
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omb_version
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'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'
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omb_listener
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The identifier URI for the listener.
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In the results for the request token request, the local service MUST
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send the following additional parameters:
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omb_version
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'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'
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User authorization
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------------------
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In requesting user authorization, the remote service must send the
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following parameters:
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omb_version
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'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
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omb_listener
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The identifier URI for the listener.
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omb_listenee
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The identifier URI for the listenee.
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omb_listenee_profile
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The profile URL of the listenee.
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omb_listenee_nickname
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The nickname of the listenee.
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omb_listenee_license
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The default license URL for the listenee's stream. Typically the
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URL of a Creative Commons license, with the Attribution license
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being heavily encouraged. CC0 quitclaim also pretty good. The
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local service MAY reject listenees if their licenses are
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incompatible with the service.
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The remote service should send as many of the following parameters as
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possible. This will help the user decide if they really want to allow
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the listening to happen, and allow the local service to store a copy
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of the listenee's profile.
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omb_listenee_fullname
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The full name of the listenee. Up to 255 chars.
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omb_listenee_homepage
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The home page of the listenee (may be distinct from the profile
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URL).
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omb_listenee_bio
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A brief biography of the listenee; less than 140 chars.
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omb_listenee_location
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Physical location of the listenee; less that 255 chars. No fixed
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structure, but "Locality, Region, Country" or "Locality, Country"
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or "Locality, Region" recommended.
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omb_listenee_avatar
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URL of a 96px by 96px image in PNG, GIF or JPEG format representing
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the listenee.
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The local service, in a successful response, must return the
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following additional parameters:
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omb_version
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'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
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omb_listener_nickname
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A nickname for the listener.
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omb_listener_profile
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The profile URL for the listener, possibly cleaned up or
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canonicalized.
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It should return as many of the following as possible:
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omb_listener_fullname
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The full name of the listener. Up to 255 chars.
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omb_listener_homepage
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The home page of the listener (may be distinct from the profile
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URL).
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omb_listener_bio
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A brief biography of the listener; less than 140 chars.
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omb_listener_location
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Physical location of the listener; less that 255 chars. No fixed
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structure, but "Locality, Region, Country" or "Locality, Country"
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or "Locality, Region" recommended.
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omb_listener_avatar
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URL of a 96px by 96px image in PNG, GIF or JPEG format representing
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the listener.
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This will allow the remote service to display information about the
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listener in the listenee's "listeners" or "subscribers" list.
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Posting a Notice
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================
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To post a notice to the local service, the remote service sends an HTTP
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POST message to the postNotice URL discovered above. The message must
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use OAuth authorization. The message must also include the following
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parameters:
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omb_version
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'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
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omb_listenee
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The identifier URI for the listenee.
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omb_notice
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The notice URI.
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omb_notice_content
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The content of the notice. No maximum, but 140 chars is recommended.
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The message may include the following parameters:
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omb_notice_url
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The URL of the notice, if the notice is retrievable.
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omb_notice_license
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The URL of the license for the notice, if different from the
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listenee's default license.
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omb_seealso
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URL of additional content for the notice; for example, an image,
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video, or audio file.
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omb_seealso_disposition
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One of 'link' or 'inline', to recommend how the extra data should
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be shown. Default 'link'.
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omb_seealso_mediatype
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Internet Media Type of the see-also data. Advisory, probably
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shouldn't be trusted.
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omb_seealso_license
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License for the attached data. May be distinct from the notice's
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license (if they're passing along someone else's content).
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The local service should include the following parameters in its
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response:
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omb_version
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'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
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The local service makes no guarantees about the delivery of the notice
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to anyone.
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The remote service SHOULD NOT send a message with the same notice URL
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to the same postNotice URL more than once. [2]_ If the request returns
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a 403 Unauthorized message, the remote service SHOULD NOT post
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messages to the same URL again with the same listenee, until another
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listener has gone through the OAuth dance. [3]_
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.. [2] A half-assed optimization. A local service may have a lot of
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listeners listening to the same listenee. It would be pointless to
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have the remote service post the same notice 100 times to the same
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service. However, if the local service wants fine-grained control,
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it can have a different postNotice URL for each listener.
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.. [3] If there's one postNotice URL per listener, the 403 message
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means the listener has told the local service not to allow posting
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any more ("unsubscribed"). If there's one postNotice URL per local
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service, it means that the count of listeners has dropped to 0.
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Updating a profile
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==================
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If the listenee's profile information changes, the remote service MAY
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send an HTTP POST message to to the updateProfile URL to tell the
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local service about the change.
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The message must use OAuth authorization. The message must also
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include the following parameters:
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omb_version
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'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
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omb_listenee
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The identifier URI for the listenee.
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The message may include any of the following parameters:
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omb_listenee_profile
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The profile URL of the listenee.
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omb_listenee_nickname
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The nickname of the listenee.
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omb_listenee_license
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The default license URL for the listenee's stream. A change in the
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default license only applies to future notices; notices previous
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to the update SHOULD be treated as under the old license.
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omb_listener_fullname
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The full name of the listener. Up to 255 chars.
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omb_listener_homepage
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The home page of the listener.
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omb_listener_bio
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A brief biography of the listener; less than 140 chars.
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omb_listener_location
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Physical location of the listener; less that 255 chars.
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omb_listener_avatar
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URL of a 96px by 96px image in PNG, GIF or JPEG format representing
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the listener.
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Missing parameters should not be construed to mean that the profile
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field has been blanked. The remote service MUST set the parameter to
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an empty string to show that the field is blank.
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