When I use my OpenID to comment somewhere, most sites list my URL in the comment, but they all add a rel=nofollow attribute to it. This is clearly the correct behavior, as anything else would encourage spam. However, there’s not any way (in many implementations) to tell the difference between an OpenID comment, and a comment entered by a regular user that includes a URL.
It might be possible to create a new attribute which indicates that a url is that of a logged in OpenID user, but this would have slow adoption and would be far from universal (and still require rel=nofollow, creating a contradiction). Instead, it should be possible for the OpenID provider to keep track of which sites have asked for login details, and provide that list to the user. This is the point at which it might make sense for an OpenID implementation to report additional information about the reason for authentication (create a new account, post a comment, whatever).
At the very least, it should be possible to provide the user with a list of “sites you interacted with.” A little filtering, and it might be possible to dynamically allow a user to add a feed of “places I’ve commented recently” to their blog, providing something similar to a trackback, without the required mechanisms on both ends.
Clearly, this breaks down in some cases. Sites where you login with OpenID, but then stay logged in via cookie. Sites that are not comment-based. Sites that you use OpenID to create an account for, but which are not “comments.” At the same time, it would be pretty cool to be able to generate a list of “sites I use” and to take a stab at parsing out and displaying comments across the web.
The key thing here is the simplicity. This could be implemented without creating any new protocols, using existing technology. I may try this…
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