Update website routes

[kabilar]

Hi team, following up from the Scientific Core meeting yesterday.

Currently www.dandiarchive.org and dandiarchive.org point to two different sites, which is not common and not ideal. To resolve, we brainstormed a few ideas. Below I propose a possible solution by building on the ideas proposed yesterday. Please let me know what you think.

Possible implementation

• www.dandiarchive.org is changed to about.dandiarchive.org
  • This would result in the following URLs for the respective pages:
    • about.dandiarchive.org/news
    • about.dandiarchive.org/blog
    • about.dandiarchive.org/team
    • about.dandiarchive.org/vacancies
    • To shorten the URLs (which is generally my preference), the other option would be to move all of these pages to their respective subdomains (e.g. blog.dandiarchive.org). But SEO is also something to consider here.
  • We had also discussed dandiarchive.info, but personally I am not a fan of domains other than *.org and *.com since these domains (i.e. .info) are not as common and users may not be familiar with these domains.
• www.dandiarchive.org/handbook is changed to docs.dandiarchive.org
  • For other projects, it looks to be fairly common that documentation is either at docs.<project>.<com/org> or <project>.<com/org>/doc[s], so thats why I am proposing to use docs instead of handbook.
  • We had also discussed changing www.dandiarchive.org/handbook to about.dandiarchive.org/handbook, but that seems like a long URL to get to the docs.
  • If possible, once these changes are implemented it would be ideal to redirect users from the www.dandiarchive.org/handbook to docs.dandiarchive.org
• www.dandiarchive.org redirects to dandiarchive.org
• hub.dandiarchive.org stays the same

[bendichter]

Overall, I am happy with this proposal and think all of the suggestions are workable.

Regarding the URL shortening proposal (moving pages to their respective subdomains like blog.dandiarchive.org): While I understand the appeal, this would make maintaining a Hugo website significantly more complex. Site builders generally assume a hierarchical structure with a common route, and breaking this pattern would require substantial development and DevOps work. IMO the effort required doesn't justify the minor benefit of shorter URLs.

Moving to docs.dandiarchive.org is a good move. I particularly like that it maintains consistency with other projects in our ecosystem, such as docs.openneuro.org.

On the topic of alternative TLDs: While I personally enjoy using informative or creative TLDs to make URLs more meaningful (and .info is common enough to be recognizable), I understand your reservations, @kabilar. You're definitely not alone in preferring traditional TLDs. (Remind me to share the huddle.fish story over a beer sometime!)

[kabilar]

Thanks @bendichter. This plan sounds good. So to summarize, it looks like we are converging on the following:

• www.dandiarchive.org is changed to about.dandiarchive.org
• www.dandiarchive.org/handbook is changed to docs.dandiarchive.org
• www.dandiarchive.org redirects to dandiarchive.org
• hub.dandiarchive.org stays the same

[satra]

do check if the first two are possible using github and cnames on different repos.

[kabilar]

do check if the first two are possible using github and cnames on different repos.

Hi @satra, based on other projects I have worked on, I believe this should work out as desired.

• dandi.github.io/dandi.github.io will resolve to about.dandiarchive.org
• dandi.github.io/handbook will resolve to docs.dandiarchive.org

[satra]

great. since you have access to the dns setting, you should be able to make these changes there.

[kabilar]

For consistency and clarity, are we also okay with renaming the respective repos?

• https://github.com/dandi/dandi.github.io -> https://github.com/dandi/dandi-about
• https://github.com/dandi/handbook -> https://github.com/dandi/dandi-docs

[kabilar]

• www.dandiarchive.org is changed to about.dandiarchive.org
• www.dandiarchive.org/handbook is changed to docs.dandiarchive.org

Created the DNS records and merged the pull requests. And the URLs are now live. I am slowly updating the DANDI repos and sites to make sure that they use the correct URLs. I am also submitting pull requests to collaborators (e.g. Dendro, NWB, OpenScope, etc.) to update the URLs.

• www.dandiarchive.org redirects to dandiarchive.org

I edited the DNS record for www.dandiarchive.org to use the value of https://dandiarchive.org. I am now receiving a certificate error when going to www.dandiarchive.org. In ACM, it looks like we have a certificate for *.dandiarchive.org, so not sure why this certificate error occurs. Perhaps because the dandiarchive.org certificate is handled by Netlify? @waxlamp do you have any suggestions on how to resolve? Thanks.

[waxlamp]

Perhaps because the dandiarchive.org certificate is handled by Netlify?

I think this is why. Let's meet to verify.

[kabilar]

• www.dandiarchive.org redirects to dandiarchive.org

I edited the DNS record for www.dandiarchive.org to use the value of https://dandiarchive.org. I am now receiving a certificate error when going to www.dandiarchive.org. In ACM, it looks like we have a certificate for *.dandiarchive.org, so not sure why this certificate error occurs. Perhaps because the dandiarchive.org certificate is handled by Netlify? @waxlamp do you have any suggestions on how to resolve? Thanks.

Thanks Roni. Just noting here for others that we met and this is now resolved by manually updating Route 53. We submitted dandi/dandi-infrastructure#207 so that the manual changes on Route 53 (for the subdomains www, about, and docs) are now defined as code.

[kabilar]

Hi @waxlamp, it looks like after we merged dandi/dandi-infrastructure#207, ran terraform apply, and waited a little while, www.dandiarchive.org doesn't resolve again. The DNS record in Route 53 looks correct. We'll have to explore a bit more on Monday. Thanks.

[kabilar]

For consistency and clarity, are we also okay with renaming the respective repos?

• https://github.com/dandi/dandi.github.io -> https://github.com/dandi/dandi-about
• https://github.com/dandi/handbook -> https://github.com/dandi/dandi-docs

Proceeding with renaming the repos.

[bendichter]

@kabilar good to close?

[kabilar]

@kabilar good to close?

Hi @bendichter, I'm waiting on some pull requests to get merged.