Should we gradually transition to using tiddlywiki.org instead of tiddlywiki.com?

#1

Should we gradually transition to using tiddlywiki.org as the main distribution site for TiddlyWiki, instead of tiddlywiki.com?

The motivation is to remove the ambiguity that .com domains are traditionally associated with commercial endeavours, which TiddlyWiki is emphatically not.

Technically, we would use HTTP 301 redirects to automatically redirect to the new site, so nothing would break for existing end users; and the only change they might notice would be the address bar of the browser.

The background is that in 2004 I registered both “tiddlywiki.com” and “tiddlywiki.org”, but I decided to use tiddlywiki.com for the main distribution of TiddlyWiki. At the time, I had little experience of open source, and so my reasoning was that tiddlywiki.com made it sound like one of the fashionable “dot com” companies of that era. I thought that was funny because even then TiddlyWiki was antithetical to the dotcom mindset.

We have periodically used tiddlywiki.org as a community site for the project, but we’ve never addressed the ambiguity that many people understand dotcom sites to be associated with a commercial organisation, while dotorg sites are used for non-commercial purposes like charities and open source projects.

One further motivation for the change is that after a year or two we would be free to use tiddlywiki.com as a marketplace for the community to offer commercial consultancy or other services.

What do you think? The answer I’m kind of hoping for is “why would any of that matter?”, because I think it should not really directly affect anyone, but I’m very interested to understand the thoughts of others.

The reason that I am asking the question now is that I am in the process of putting together a new community site for the project. My current plan is to host it at https://tiddlywiki.org, but if we wanted to ever make the switch under discussion then we’d have to make the community site be something like https://community.tiddlywiki.org.

Thanks!

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#2

I think that is a good idea @jeremyruston if we do it without breaking things, as you’ve rightly pointed out.

Having said that, most folks I think (I may be wrong) probably do not really think much about the tld used as far as FOSS projects are concerned (many use all kinds, including dev, io, co, etc). For example, a library I use for developing material design based web UI with React is open source and has been using .com since its inception I believe. Only recently, it has become an open core company, but it never really mattered to contributors.

Bottomline is there should be no pressure to move to .org I think. Especially given the fact that .org may be liable to price hikes as domain registry companies try to scalp NGOs who are .org’s biggest buyers.

Thank you again for all your work.

#3

Really. I had wondered about this in the past but not curious enough to ask the question.

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#4

I personally would like to be able to go to the default landing page, not the reference docs, if I enter tiddlywiki.org

It would be nice if you could check, if it is possible to create a permanent redirect from tiddlywiki.com -> tiddlywiki.org/en/docs

tiddlywiki.org/en/ should redirect to --> tiddlywiki.org

Translated landing pages could go to eg: tiddlywiki.org/de/ and tiddlywiki.org/fr/ …

I would like to have the English reference documentation somewhere at tiddlywiki.org/en/docs/ and the German reference docs with tiddlywiki.org/de/docs the French reference at tiddlywiki.org/fr/docs … and so on.

Or if it is easier, it could be docs.tiddlywiki.org/en /de /fr and so on.

The translated versions may be independent repositories, that could act independently from the main docs.

We would need some more rules and workflows, that allow us to “stay in sync”. If pages are not translated yet, the English version can be used. … There has been some discussions here at Talk lately.

More thoughts will follow.

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#5

I think this is a no-brainer. Go for it.

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#6

Hmm. I’m thinking of the dozens, (hundreds?) of references that will need to be fixed. Yeah, I know technically the 301 will fix that, but it’s better optics if the links are fixed too.

I would demur and suggest that “.com” is considered more professional, more serious than “.org”. Given that the name TiddlyWiki may already lack gravitas, well.

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#7

Sad but true. In my opinion, though this is a good idea, it isn’t really necessary to achieve separation of consultancy and community stuff. Plenty of open source companies achieve just that with one TLD.

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#8

There are good arguments for and against a transition and consolidation. For now, I’d like to add that, as a newcomer, a confusing moment for me was, “I need to do ‘x’ on a computer or browser that hasn’t yet visited that site or page…is what I want on the .org or the .com side?” Until I got used to what was where, I would just have to try one and see if it worked.

So, to help onboard newcomers, I think consolidating the entire project under one TLD is a good idea. However, that is mitigated with a week or two of active searching and reading (well, assuming your personal wetware memory is sufficient to the task).

My preference is for what @jeremyruston posted in the OP.

As for changing links: If the structure remains the same, a simple awk (Linux search-and-replace) or similar command would make that task easy. A reorganization of the structure ought to be a separate task, in my opinion.

#9

I think, the problem isn’t with internal links. The problem comes from broken links that are “out there in the wild”. So all google group links and all links we posted here should still work once the transition is done.

#11

I’m still interested in the idea of presenting something more along the lines of a conventional landing page, but I am not so keen on moving the documentation to a new site. In any case, the landing page would still be a TiddlyWiki for backwards compatibility reasons, so I don’t see much reason not to include the docs.

#12

THB I don’t have a view about it. I’m not sure what the real final difference would be?

Though I did note @Mark_S’ comment …

… which seems to indicate there may be downsides.

Just a comment, TT

#13

Taken at face value, not much. It’s an evolved/derived convention. And for Jeremy to spend so many words (time!) explaining the position and background, I trust it matters more than purely face value.

Just my take…

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#14

Okay. Taken. IMO @jeremyruston should do anything he wants since TW was birthed by him & if he feels going “.org” is correct there is no way I’d ever object.

He did ask for views about it. I commented, basically, “I’m neutral” on the issue. Partly I do not have the needed experience to have a clear opinion. Though partly I do see that the reality of “open source” v. “commercial” is maybe not so simple as it once was.

Just a comment, TT

#15

@jeremyruston as others suggested tiddlywiki.com mostly exists on the internet as links so these need to be maintained no matter what, although they can be predictably redirected they should be retained indefinitely in my view, the Google and now discourse forums are dependant on this along with many private links.

On .com

This is an open TLD; any person or entity is permitted to register. Though originally intended for use by for-profit business entities, for a number of reasons it became the main TLD for domain names and is currently used by all types of entities including nonprofits, schools, and private individuals. Domain name registrations may be successfully challenged if the holder cannot prove an outside relation justifying reservation of the name,[citation needed] to prevent “squatting”. It was originally administered by the United States Department of Defense. Source

I think using tiddlywiki.org in the long run is a good idea but it is a simple matter of starting to use the .org address and let the links develop. Over time links containing .org will build and your open source impression will happen.

On .com, the fact is for many .com domains are easier to get than using local TLD’s eg .com.au so despite the .com implying commercial entities, I think it is well established that .com is not only commercial. “Every man and his dog” has acquired .com domains and many are not actually commercial.

It is my view there is no need to exit or de-emphasize the .com just start using the .org more including its subdomains talk.tiddlywiki.org as awareness builds the links will grow and .org come to dominate, however there may be value looking at the new high level domains and trends. eg

  • tiddly.wiki
  • tiddlywiki.community
#16

I like the idea and I hope this transition helps to have a nice landing page. I believe the whole tiddlywiki.com is a documentation site and this needs to be improved in many ways!

#17

I don’t think transitioning from .com to .org is needed, but it would be beneficial. The .org often implies an organization exists to support the work financially or the work is done solely by volunteers at a not-for-profit. For example, a community powered radio station where I live, Hollow Earth Radio uses .org, it would not really be appropriate for a volunteer run organization to use .com, although nothing really stops them from doing so. Despite the fact it may be a seemingly minor convention, I believe transitioning to .org is a net benefit as it makes it clear TiddlyWiki is a community based project, not a commercial project. If in the future the TiddlyWiki community decides to form a non-commercial entity, it would be beneficial to already be using .org as this would clearly set the precedent TiddlyWiki is not-for-profit.

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#18

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments. I note that:

  • Many (or perhaps) most people do not feel strongly about the issue
  • There is concern that existing links will continue to work (which I think is taken care of by the 301 redirects)
  • There is concern that existing manual links on tiddlywiki.{com|org} will need updating (I think this is fairly straightforward)
  • Whatever the domain, there is interest in TiddlyWiki presenting a more conventional landing page
  • There was also a conflicting concern that “.com” is considered more professional and serious than “.org”. In the short to medium term, the latter would redirect to the former. In the longer term, “tiddlywiki.com” might resurface as a front door for all the independent people trying to do TW work on a commercial basis, at which point I guess things would be aligned correctly

So, I’ve decided:

  1. To continue with preparing the new community site at https://tiddlywiki.org/
  2. To plan to move https://tiddlywiki.com/ to https://tiddlywiki.org/ when it is convenient to do so
  3. In the meantime to consolidate other TW sites under “.org” (which means moving https://links.tiddlywiki.com/, maybe making https://dev.tiddlywiki.org, and perhaps also worth making a dedicated https://desktop.tiddlywiki.com/ site)
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#19

.com? Not .org?  

#20

Mistyped. But illustrates why we should probably have {docs|links|etc}.tiddlywiki.com redirect to *.tiddlywiki.org

#21

As long as all the permalink’s to operators and other documentation tiddlers posted into forums and private documentation survive this change it will be a good refresh.

Will tiddlywiki.com always be a tiddlywiki?

Food for thought

I ask because there are a few designers in the community with other CMS skills (including me) and there may be opportunities for tiddlywiki integration before we effectively handle the internet facing multiple contributor issues inherent in TiddlyWiki. A previous prototype not yet with tiddlywiki integration is here http://www.colabteam.net/tiddlywiki/ I could imagine;

  • Creating custom posts and categories for all tiddlywiki objects such as plugins, macros, stylesheets, layouts, libraries, json data, tiddlers wikis etc… that registered users can contribute to a searchable resource as well as access to a set of independent wikies with curated content, with contributor or special interest “home wikis”.
  • I am also confident their would be a way to integrate TiddlyWiki’s into a CMS like wordpress where wordpress handles the editor access, with serial editing checkin/out of single file wikis.
  • This could also broaden the opportunity to publish tiddlywikis via a common platform, with contention addressed, increasing the potential adoption and allowing large networks of single file tiddlywikis.

Alternatively TiddlyWiki’s with layouts that look more like conventional websites would in themselves provide a good resource to develop and share, with a refreshed tiddlywiki.com making use of the communities efforts.

If tiddlywiki.com continues to be a tiddlywiki my own view is its static tiddlers should all link back into the active wiki. I also believe this should be the case with our documentation wiki, allowing independent tiddlers to be linked to or iframed but any interaction such as tags and links loads the full site to explore the interrelationships.

Just a few morsels.