If we want to have the same login and password on every site, don’t you think we could just do that ourselves? Duh? It’s called using the same email address and password everywhere. And this is a problem that OpenID solves?

What a joke. If you wan to know how to make a good registration/login system look at Reddit. Those guys know how to do it.

I view this as the “who moved my cheese” brigade. These are people who have a sort of Stockholm Syndrome; they actually *like* having unique usernames and passwords on every single website they visit.

In short, these people are sick, and need help. OpenID help.

I do greatly fear an influx of one-click Facebook users, though. Note: I’m not kidding.

I dig your motivation for including OpenID. If not now, when, right?

So there’s really two questions here:

– OpenID?
That’s cool, the underlying login technology is really independent to the means by which one interacts with it. Elves could verifying my ID while stealing the $9 in my wallet for all I care.

– OpenID @ Stackoverflow?
If your contention is that you’ve purposefully implemented a less-than-stellar OpenID login scheme to speed bump new accounts, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the usefulness here :-)

If you plan on securing investment, removing roadblocks to getting that DAU count up there will be the first order of business. Speaking of that, where’s the Facebook app to show off my SO badges? ;-)

I would suggest to consider this more in the context for someone coming to stackoverflow:

—
It’s the end of the day. I’ve been struggling with Rails and has_many :though. Sure I could stop using Rails, though I’m a sadist. I’m frustrated and want to ask a question. And when I’m done, I’ll feel better and perhaps contribute back to the community. According to Emotional Design, this is the least appropriate moment to challenge me mentally with an unfamiliar concept – my focus is narrowed and I’m done with problem solving.
—

I tend to agree that hey, it’s a site for software developers – they’ll figure it out. And they have, obviously. Though I was surprised to find so many votes and comments for the OpenID request @ uservoice.

Thanks for stopping by and best of luck with SO!

Rob

Y’know, for programmers. :)

I just want to emphasize how important the audience is in making the decisions we made. I absolutely would not pursue OpenID for a site targeted at older users, for example.

Bear in mind this is a site for *software developers*.

Also, a small tip: all you usually need to type in is “google.com” and click login. Try it!

Because login is something you do infrequently, many are likely to give SO a pass on this as the hassle is worth it. It’s a great community and if my entry free is stumbling through the OpenID process, then so be it.

I actually did notice the “Why OpenID?” while going back to take my screenshots. It could come after the flow due to the issue you highlighted (“crash course right before the login task”). For example, once you’re logged in, a banner item such as “You just logged in with your OpenID, thanks! I did?! Wow! What’s OpenID?” That sort of modeless feedback would have a much better chance of being read and accepted than before the login process when I’m frustrated being forced to learn something new – taking my medicine so to speak.

I’d rather have my bowl of ice cream and then find out all the great things that were in it =)

I think the challenge they have is this. On the one hand they want to evangelize OpenID, which I can appreciate. On the other hand, few people know what it is or how it works, which is a problem in particular for the SO audience since geeks will usually want to understand how something like that works before using it. So in effect they’ve inserted this crash course right before the login task, which for most users represents a distraction from what they’re trying to do. So users end up being distracted (if they actually read the OpenID information) or else feeling a little confused about what they just did.

Anyway I agree with you that from a user perspective the focus should be on the login task itself and not on the OpenID technology. At the same time it may be that they’re trying to strike the balance between the user perspective and OpenID evangelization. The rest of the site is so good from an interaction and usability perspective that I’m prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.