WeblogUrls

Via Sam Ruby, Matthew Thomas has a bunch of weblog URL notes.

I've had a lot to say about this on my blog too, but I'm not going to find the links now.

also... example URLs

current: http://www.keithdevens.com/weblog/3861/

possible changes:
http://www.keithdevens.com/weblog/archiv.../3861/Top_100_video_games_of_all_time
http://www.keithdevens.com/weblog/archive/2003/May/08/Top100VideoGames
http://www.keithdevens.com/weblog/3861/Top_100_video_games_of_all_time

How CNN does it:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/05/09/plane.deaths/index.html

See, I've always liked the super-short version I'm using now. It's clean, etc. The first possible change of including the /archive/date, etc. is just far too long. Plus, it partly contains redundant information because of the post id. And it's too fucking long.

The second solution, of still making the post relative to the day, but getting rid of the post id and giving the post a short unique (but descriptive) name within the day that can be shorter than titles, is better. This is similar to Simon's approach.

Last, the third possibility involves keeping the current url scheme, but adding an optional url-ization of whatever the title of the post is. Pro is that it's still relatively short, the title doesn't have to be fixed because anything will work, and it's far more descriptive. Looking through my logs and seeing what people link to, I always have to check to see what post 3648 is. If it was /weblog/3648/descriptive_title it would be immediately obvious, so it would really help me too. This is similar to the approach LGF uses.

It turns out the second possibility and the third happen to be the exact same length in this case, though the second will on average probably be a little longer than the first. The only cons are the length (which will still, however, generally pass my criteria of subjective "too-long-ness" and the more objective one of not wrapping when sent in an e-mail that wraps at 76 characters), and that once you pick a name, that's it, you're stuck. Though, while titles often change, I don't think the name should generally have to unless you make a spelling mistake, or significantly change the focus of the post. I should ask Simon how he gets along.

I posted the CNN url example for a reason. Most news sites have a short unique name like that. The date and "Africa" and "plane.deaths" makes it reasonably obvious what the post is about.

The more I think about it, the more the second possibility seems like the best. I'll still miss the short-ness of my current URLs, but it'll probably be worth it for the clarity, and it'll further serve to reinforce the important point that weblog posts are transient... specific to a point in time, and not to be revised except possibly to note of future posts updating that one or some other updates (like a pointer to commentary on the post, or a correction). Whereas "pages" on a site, or wiki pages, are more permanent, and should always contain current information.

Oh yeah, the major major problem with the second option is that in common blogging software, like w.bloggar, there's no place to include a name like that. I might have to wind up typing my blog posts in KISML.

Update(2003-06-18) - I did go with the second scheme, and I've been very happy with it. So, a recent weblog post of mine was:
http://www.keithdevens.com/weblog/archive/2003/Jun/16/RSS2.0

One of the best consequences of this URL scheme is that when I get referrers, I can immediately see what the referrer was for, rather than having just a number and then having to look up what post that was.

Page last edited: June 18, 2003 (utc)