Web-based registration [Was: [JDEV] Account information storage, plaintext?]

[David Waite]

mblsha wrote:

>Web-based registration is too slow IMO. I tend to create lots of JIDs for 
>testing purposes and having to fill the form on web and send the confirmation 
>email will drive me mad. So I would like to see creation of web frontend to 
>registration as SHOULD.
>
Actually I think both in-band and web registration would be MAY. The 
real challenge is that there are now be many possible registration settings:

- No registration allowed on server
- In Band registration allowed
- In Band registration allowed only for TLS-protected sessions
- Web-based registration

How do we make getting a new Jabber account as intuitive as possible for 
a new user? How does a client author make a 'clean' registration 
interface based on these choices? I have gotten a lot of comments from 
people who have given up on Jabber before even registering an account, 
because they searched and did not find a web registration interface (I 
then created accounts for most of them ;-)). Even just a simple, 
prominent walkthrough on the left side of the www.jabber.org page named 
something like 'Get Started using Jabber Now!' might help this problem.

Either a jabber uri or mime type would be helpful for feeding new 
account registration information from a web registration form back into 
a client. Registration requirements could be fed into the public servers 
XML file on jabber.org, and queried by clients when the user selects 
'Register New Account...', to present the user with a list of potential 
servers. The in-band registration mechanism can also be used to get the 
location of a  web registration form.

Plenty of options to make registration simpler. It is really a matter 
for client developers to decide what they want, and the resources and 
protocol being there for the clients themselves to get what they need.

-David Waite