Hi, longtime user of various discourse hosted forums here, and I have found that it would be highly useful to implement something like https://pluralkit.me/[1] which is a plugin for discord that allows a user to post under various proxy accounts. This allows people with multiple identities to easily make it clear who is posting what, but it also allows for people to use the infrastructure for other creative uses, for example on discord many people will use it for roleplay, (proxying the message as a character) obviously this could be used for a verity of other uses, perhaps different looking accounts for official moderation under different sections of a project, or perhaps you would use it for similar reasons as to why you would have a sideblog on tumblr. I’m aware that this could be a rather complex thing to implement, but it would potentially help a lot of people feel more comfortable.
Are you able to share a link, by any chance? I tried searching around but couldn’t figure out what you mean by Simplex.
Since this is the first topic here on Meta that links to PluralKit that I can find, I also wanted to reply to say that this is a feature request that I would find helpful in the site I admin (). I consider myself lucky that there are plural users who choose to spend their time on the site I manage, and it frustrates me that these users must work to accommodate this dimension of their selves to the relatively static notions the site has about identity.
Accessibility in web development should not be relegated to checking WCAG boxes for bragging rights. Following those guidelines are an important first step and I admire Discourse’s development for caring as much as it does, but the guidelines cannot be a substitute for listening to users’ actual experiences. This is one case where my site’s users tell me that the site is imposing unnecessary friction.
I understand that it’s a niche feature to be rallying for, but autonomy and expressiveness through online profiles matter. They give us the smallest window to the people past our screens and as such, are one of the primary pillars for building a humane web. I know it’s popular right now to try to be an efficient revolving door for web-scrapers and hurried users who want to get their answer and get out, but I’m more interested in building and occupying coffee-shop type communities, and niche features that make users feel seen and cared for give me the tools I need as an admin to foster deeper roots.
Yeah, with a few tweaks this would be a great pluralkit like experience for posts, how hard would it be to get something similar working for chats? I feel like it would be pretty hard?
). I consider myself lucky that there are plural users who choose to spend their time on the site I manage, and it frustrates me that these users must work to accommodate this dimension of their selves to the relatively static notions the site has about identity.