sign-in-use-cases

sign-in use-cases are user-benefitting reasons to implement IndieAuth on your personal site so others can sign-in into it.

OpenID was inspired by the use case of bloggers wanting to comment on other blogs using their own blog as their sign-in identity.

Here is a summary of current use cases for implementing web sign-in on your indie web site, e.g. with IndieAuth / RelMeAuth, roughly ordered by frequency, originally as braindumped on IRC with subsequent additions.

show personal info

(consider expanding this to its own page now that there is an IndieWeb Example)

Show more detailed hCard to allow-listed logged in users (e.g. phone number, home address)

Every indie web site should have contact info either on its home page or on a contact/about page marked up with hCard.

To avoid spam, you may prefer to keep your email address private.

To avoid telemarketing calls, you may prefer to keep your phone number private

To avoid physical junk mail, you may prefer to keep your mailing address private.

However, you may wish to disclose these details to signed-in users, or perhaps an allow list of trusted friends.

Thus, if a user signs-into your site, you can check if their identity is in an allow list and if so, show a more detailed hCard.

This functionality is being considered for a future level of the IndieMark identity axis since there is at least one implementation (http://ben.thatmustbe.me/ since 2014-08-13).

signed-in access only posts

You may have some posts that you're ok with people reading, but don't want random anonymous crawlers to pick-up (with or without robots.txt compliance).

Perhaps you want to share drafts in progress publicly with humans but do not want the drafts crawled and indexed.

IndieWeb community members who have implemented this:

Aaron Parecki, e.g.: http://aaronparecki.com/articles/2013/05/18/1/stop-reinventing-meta-tags (as of 2013-05-19, later this post might become public without sign-in)

limited access posts

Show limited-access posts (e.g. geolocation checkins), or private posts in general.

You may want to post something to only a specific set of friends (e.g. G+ Circles).

Perhaps you want only some people to see your geo-checkins.

Thus if a user signs into your site and is on an allow list, you can show more posts to them on the home page, or allow access to permalinks to non-public posts.

messaging

Show a "send me a message" form only to people who've logged in via Web Sign-in, and then their message comes automatically from whatever identity they signed-in with!

This could send the message via email for example.

Or, perhaps provide the option to send the message via txt/SMS, perhaps only allow an allow list of specific set of friends to txt you.

commenting

inline commenting UI

Create: Allow signed in users to create comments by posting to their own website (e.g. via Micropub) and auto-webmention them back onto the post and display them in real-time. This way your website itself is indieweb friendly towards others with indiewebsites and empowers them to own their comments.
Update / Edit: Allow signed in users to edit their existing comments, perhaps similarly via Micropub edit to their own sites, auto-webmention CRUD update displayed in real-time on the post.
Delete: Allow signed in users to delete their existing comments, perhaps similarly via Micropub delete to their own sites, auto-webmention CRUD deletion displayed (animated?) in real-time on the post. Perhaps even with an "Undo delete" button where the comment used to be. And then implement Undo.

local comments

Allow local comments (perhaps again when in an allow list)

Though you should first implement accepting comments via notification via webmention and displaying such comments.

This is the original use-case for decentralized identity that inspired OpenID.

You might want to only allow signed-in users to create local comments on your posts.

Or perhaps again use an allow list to permit only a set of trusted users to make comments.

tagging

Allow tagging (perhaps anyone? or those in an allow list) of posted items (as pointed out by aaronpk here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronpk/7492244882/in/photostream/ )

minor edits

Allow minor edits to posts, e.g. to fix typos, grammar errors (again per an allow list) - check for % of change, or # of characters changed as a threshold.

Also works as a use-case for drafts - i.e. allow minor edits to drafts.

major edits

Allow major edits (an even smaller allow list)

new posts

Allow posting new posts on behalf of (an even smaller allow list), e.g. something you might have an assistant do for you (without having to give *your* password/identity/full-access to)

delete posts

Allow *deleting* posts (maybe only allow-listed to your attorney?)