activitypub-webfinger

Internationalized Webfinger Handle Adoption

This document tracks adoption of non-ASCII characters in Webfinger handles in ActivityPub.

Background

Most ActivityPub servers implement Webfinger for providing readable localpart@domain.example account identifiers. The ActivityPub and Webfinger Report outlines how Webfinger is implemented in the ActivityPub network.

For the top human languages, only 3 primarily use only ASCII characters (English, Malaysian, Indonesian), for a total of about 500 million people. That means about 90% of humans use languages with non-Latin, or accented, character sets.

Webfinger supports non-ASCII characters in both the local part (user name) and domain. In this document, we call Webfinger handles with non-ASCII characters internationalized Webfinger handles, inclusive handles, or non-ASCII handles. This document tracks adoption of non-ASCII characters in Webfinger handles in ActivityPub.

Server and client matrix

This matrix is for tracking ActivityPub software implementation status of non-ASCII Webfinger handles.

It includes ActivityPub servers, ActivityPub server frameworks, Mastodon API clients, and ActivityPub API clients.

The table has the following columns:

• Software: name and link to the software.
• Receive: Can local users receive activities from a remote account with a non-ASCII handle?
• Send: Can local users send activities to a remote account with a non-ASCII handle?
• Link: Are non-ASCII handles linkified in in-band mentions?
• Search: Can the server’s search interface discover an actor with a non-ASCII handle?
• Domain: Can a server be hosted on a domain with non-ASCII characters?
• Username: Can users on the server have a non-ASCII localpart (username) in their handle?
• Issue(s): Task tracking for these or related features

Thanks to FediDB for the seed version of the software list.

Software	Receive	Send	Link	Search	Domain	Username	Issue(s)
Activity-Relay	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
activitypub.bot1	?	?	?	?	?	?	#282
Activityrelay	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Akkoma	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
BadgeFed	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Betula	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Bonfire	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Bookwyrm	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Bridgy-fed	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
browser.pub	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Cherrypick	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Drupal	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Ecko	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Emissary	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Fedibird	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Firefish	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Forgejo	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Forte	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Foundkey	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
frequency	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Friendica	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Funkwhale	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Gancio	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Ghost	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
GNU social	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Gotosocial	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Hackers’ Pub	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Hollo	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Hometown	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Honk	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Hubzilla	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Iceshrimp	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
irwin	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Kmyblue	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Ktistec	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Lemmy	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Loops	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Lotide	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Manyfold	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Mastodon	?	?	?	?	?	?	#8417
Mbin	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Meisskey	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Microblogpub	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Microdotblog	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Misskey	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Mitra	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Mobilizon	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
murlog	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
NeoDB	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
NodeBB	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
onepage.pub	?	?	?	?	?	?	#287
Owncast	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
PeerTube	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Piefed	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Pixelfed	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Pleroma	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Plume	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Postmarks	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Sharkey	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Smithereen	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Snac	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
stegodon	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
streams repository	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Takahe	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Threads	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
tootik	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Vernissage	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
wafrn	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Webfinger Browser	N/A	N/A	N/A	✅ Y	N/A	N/A	#35
Welley	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
WordPress	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
WriteFreely	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Library matrix

This matrix is for tracking ActivityPub software library support for non-ASCII Webfinger handles.

The table has the following columns:

• Library: name and link to the library.
• Forward: Can the library discover an ActivityPub actor from a non-ASCII handle?
• Reverse: Can the library construct an ActivityPub actor from a non-ASCII handle?
• Issue(s): Task tracking for these or related features

Software	Forward	Reverse	Issue(s)
activitypub-webfinger	?	?	#1

Submitting data

To share data about new ActivityPub and Webfinger implementations and their support for non-ASCII Webfinger handles, make a new pull request to https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-webfinger/.

1. tags.pub, groups.pub, activitypub.bot ↩