So if you want to comment using your OpenID URI, just enter it in the Web site field and leave the Name and E-mail fields empty.

When you submit your comment you are, as usual, redirected to your OpenID provider for confirmation, and when you come back, your comment is there.

The first comment on this post is from me, added using my own OpenID URI.

So what is this OpenID anyway?

OpenID is a decentralized online identity framework. It enables people to log into all sites and services that support it, using one single username, which is a reqular URI. Mine, for instance, is simply the URI of this web site: helvensteijn.com.

So, whenever people log in (or leave a comment) using an OpenID URI on a web site that supports it, they are redirected to their OpenID provider, who will ask them whether the site they came from may use the information it requests (usally name, e-mail address, that sort of things) and if they approve, they’re redirected back to where they came from, logged in and well (or with their comment posted).

This approval only needs to happen once for every site. If someone comes back later to a site he/she has already approved, logging in or posting a comment with an OpenID URI will seem no different than the old fashioned username & password way, aside from a minor delay perhaps.

To learn more, I suggest visiting the OpenID web site and if you like it, you can get your own.

Update (August 7th, 2008)

Since virtually nobody was actually using this, and the plugin wasn’t behaving very well, I decided to no longer offer this feature for now. Might be back sometime in the future.