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xs.fi ("accessify"): semantic, persistent URL namespace and a metadata specification.

Let's make URLs and metadata beautiful again.

We offer URLs like https://xs.fi/movie/by-imdb/tt12593682/imdb

We also plan to be a metadata specification to provide guide how to record metadata for your precious

If you recognize yourself as a data hoarder, you'll feel right at home.

URL model

Path after https://xs.fi	Example	Components	Description
/<namespace>	https://xs.fi/movie	namespace=movie	We are going to be referencing a movie
/<namespace>/<query>	https://xs.fi/movie/by-imdb	namespace=movie, query=by-imdb	Movie by IMDb ID
/<namespace>/<query>/<identifier>	https://xs.fi/movie/by-imdb/tt12593682	namespace=movie, query=by-imdb, id=tt12593682	Movie by IMDb ID tt12593682
/<namespace>/<query>/<identifier>/<resource>	https://xs.fi/movie/by-imdb/tt12593682/imdb	namespace=movie, query=by-imdb, id=tt12593682, resource=imdb	IMDb page for movie by IMDb ID tt12593682

In pseudo you can think of our backend data model like this:

{
	"namespaces": {
		"movie": {
			"queries": [
				{
					"query": "by-imdb"
				}
			],
			"resources": [
				{
					"resource": "imdb",
					"description": "IMDb page",
					"redirect_to": "https://www.imdb.com/title/<IMDb ID>"
				}
			]
		},
		"tv-series": {
			"queries": [
				{
					"query": "by-imdb"
				}
			],
			"resources": [
				{
					"resource": "imdb",
					"description": "IMDb page",
					"redirect_to": "https://www.imdb.com/title/<IMDb ID>"
				}
			]
		}
	}
}

• namespace is the first part after xs.fi: https://xs.fi/<namespace>. Example namespace is movie.
• Namespace is usually followed by query so the format usually is https://xs.fi/<namespace>/<query> After the namespace usually comes by-<identifier type> query. Example is https://xs.fi/<namespace>/by-imdb which means we are referencing a node based on its IMDB ID. For by-imdb namespaces which make sense are movie or tv-series so namespace+query combos read like movie/by-imdb or tv-series/by-imdb
• Identifier
• Resource

Why?

Practice has shown that not all people think URLs are beautiful or important: they'll change their web application UI and break old URLs.

So if IMDb ever changes the title URL to something else than https://www.imdb.com/title/<ID> then xs.fi can change that in the code to link to the new URL

Audience

Human consumption

Currently the URLs are meant for human consumption, i.e. it is expected the URLs to be opened in a browser.

API access

Warning

Not implemented. This might be added later.

That will be handled by Content negotiation, concretely something like Accept: application/json to distinguish opt-in to programmatic access instead of human consumption.

TODO

• Support "xs.fi:ification" of URLs: give https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12593682 as input and it should spit you back https://xs.fi/movie/by-imdb/tt12593682/imdb and also related resources like TMDB.

Promises

xs.fi will always:

• Stay
  • our largest value proposition is to not break your links and not annoy you
• Be free
• Not show advertisements
  • or if we ever need to resort to ads then it will be based on Acceptable Ads, preferably the Text ads variant.