3 ms·

The problem with these short pithy urls is that their lifetime is limited - there's only so many initiative names and they're going to collide and be removed an

The problem with these short pithy urls is that their lifetime is limited - there's only so many initiative names and they're going to collide and be removed and replaced. Cool uris don't change[1]. Short, readable uris are great but they should be merely redirecs, and the mapping should be version controlled and exposed to the public as an immutable history. [1] https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

pavo-etc 1mo ago
Luckily these are merely redirects!
markdown 1mo ago
Brings to mind this: https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/1971618033115550180 https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/1971618033115550180
- qingcharles 1mo ago
  Ha! That is genuinely confusing for a moment. What is the solution? Wipe the account and archive it all somewhere? That destroys all the meta-commentary that exists in other Tweets. Maybe just some system that lets you mark all previous posts with something that says "This account is for a government official. This post was made under the tenure of a prior holder of this position."
  - markdown 1mo ago
    While clunky, I think what you suggest is the best method.
stonogo 1mo ago
The lifetime of the programs they link to is also limited. There's no earthly reason, when running a website in 2026, to care what Tim Berners-Lee thought about the aesthetics and purposes of URLs in 1998. It's a nice nostalgia session, but "cool urls don't change" is ironically short-sighted and has lead to well-meaning dolts embedding GUIDs and other such constructs into them. The entire concept was posited prior to the advent of on-screen phone keyboards, which make typing long heavily-punctuated urls a pain in the ass. There are a thousand reasons to salute this document and let it recede into the mists of time. A municipal website should be useful to the citizens who want to use it. This is a great example of doing something useful with the web.
- mrmanner 1mo ago
  In this day and age it makes sense to amend Tim's statement to "canonical urls don't change". And cool web sites have a canonical URL for most pages. That way we a) don't lose track of relevant content but b) can have nice things such as short URLs with good names.
schrodinger 1mo ago
Easily solved by adding an interstitial whenever a URI becomes replaced and is therefore no longer immutable, and showing the history of what it used to point to as well (in case you're coming along from an old link). By default, after 5 seconds, it could redirect to the current destination.
bastawhiz 1mo ago
The public doesn't need an immutable history of URLs, they need URLs they can freaking type. When you've got pages people actually care to go to, then you can create your museum of URLs.
- _kb 1mo ago
  Particularly here where the context is ephemeral. Any usage of short links can (and sometimes should) link to a canonical source with an immutable URI. This is just a foreign key for humans.
inigyou 1mo ago
The internet isn't an append-only archive. It changes quite frequently in fact. Sorry dawg.

pavo-etc 1mo ago

Luckily these are merely redirects!

markdown 1mo ago

Brings to mind this: https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/1971618033115550180 https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/1971618033115550180

qingcharles 1mo ago
Ha! That is genuinely confusing for a moment. What is the solution? Wipe the account and archive it all somewhere? That destroys all the meta-commentary that exists in other Tweets. Maybe just some system that lets you mark all previous posts with something that says "This account is for a government official. This post was made under the tenure of a prior holder of this position."
- markdown 1mo ago
  While clunky, I think what you suggest is the best method.

stonogo 1mo ago

The lifetime of the programs they link to is also limited. There's no earthly reason, when running a website in 2026, to care what Tim Berners-Lee thought about the aesthetics and purposes of URLs in 1998. It's a nice nostalgia session, but "cool urls don't change" is ironically short-sighted and has lead to well-meaning dolts embedding GUIDs and other such constructs into them. The entire concept was posited prior to the advent of on-screen phone keyboards, which make typing long heavily-punctuated urls a pain in the ass. There are a thousand reasons to salute this document and let it recede into the mists of time. A municipal website should be useful to the citizens who want to use it. This is a great example of doing something useful with the web.

mrmanner 1mo ago
In this day and age it makes sense to amend Tim's statement to "canonical urls don't change". And cool web sites have a canonical URL for most pages. That way we a) don't lose track of relevant content but b) can have nice things such as short URLs with good names.

schrodinger 1mo ago

Easily solved by adding an interstitial whenever a URI becomes replaced and is therefore no longer immutable, and showing the history of what it used to point to as well (in case you're coming along from an old link). By default, after 5 seconds, it could redirect to the current destination.

bastawhiz 1mo ago

The public doesn't need an immutable history of URLs, they need URLs they can freaking type. When you've got pages people actually care to go to, then you can create your museum of URLs.

_kb 1mo ago
Particularly here where the context is ephemeral. Any usage of short links can (and sometimes should) link to a canonical source with an immutable URI. This is just a foreign key for humans.

inigyou 1mo ago

The internet isn't an append-only archive. It changes quite frequently in fact. Sorry dawg.