Universal Mentions is a simple convention for mentioning people on the open web without needing a central username system.
On Twitter/X, Bluesky, Mastodon, and similar systems, a mention is usually something like:
@davewiner
That only works because each platform controls its own user directory. On the open web, there is no single global directory of usernames.
BlogWarp’s proposal is: use ordinary web links, but make them look like mentions.
A Universal Mention is a link whose visible text starts with @, and whose URL points to the person’s homepage, blog, profile, or identity page.
Example:
I was talking with [@Jay](https://example.com/) about feed readers.
That renders as:
I was talking with <a href="https://example.com/">@Jay</a> about feed readers.
The important thing is that it is just a link. It works in HTML, Markdown, RSS, email, browsers, feed readers, archives, and search engines. Nothing special has to be installed for the basic version to work.
A smarter reader or aggregator could notice that the link text starts with @, visit the linked page, perform feed autodiscovery, and map the mention to a blog, feed, or profile.
To mention someone, link their name with an @ prefix.
Example:
I liked what [@Jay](https://dev.blogwarp.com/) wrote about mentions.
Or in HTML:
I liked what <a href="https://dev.blogwarp.com/">@Jay</a> wrote about mentions.
In the RSS feed, this would go out as normal HTML. Existing feed readers would show it as a regular link. Smarter readers could recognize it as a mention.
You could also mention a blog, not just a person:
I saw this via [@DaringFireball](https://daringfireball.net/).
The URL is the real identifier. The @DaringFireball text is just the friendly label.
It fits the web.
It does not require a new protocol, a blockchain, DNS ownership, ActivityPub, AT Proto, or a global namespace.
It is durable because old posts still make sense years later. The mention is just a link.
It also works well with RSS. Since the mentioned URL can have feed autodiscovery, a feed reader can potentially map the mention to a feed or profile.
For simple writing, I’d use this form:
<a href="https://scripting.com/">@Dave</a>
For software, I’d consider allowing an optional marker:
<a rel="mention" href="https://scripting.com/">@Dave</a>
That makes it unambiguous. A reader can still detect plain @ links, but rel="mention" says: this is intentionally a mention.
To mention someone on the open web, link to their web identity URL and make the link text start with @.
That is small enough to adopt immediately, and later it can grow into reader support, autocomplete, RSS discovery, and maybe Webmention-style notification.