While Perma is solution specifically for this problem, and a good one at that - citing the might of the backing company is a bit ironic here

If Cloudflare provides the infra (thanks Cloudflare!), I am happy to have them provide the compute and network for the lookups (which, at their scale, is probably a rounding error), with the Internet Archive remaining the storage system of last resort. Is that different than the Internet Archive offering compute to provide the lookups on top of their storage system? Everything is temporary, intent is important, etc. Can always revisit the stack as long as the data exists on disk somewhere accessible.

This is distinct from Google saying "bye y'all, no more GETs for you" with no other way to access the data.

This is much better positioned for longevity than google’s URL shortener, I’m not trying to make that argument. My point is that 10-15 years ago, when Google’s URL shortener was being adopted for all these (inappropriate) uses, its use was supported by a public opinion of Google’s ‘inevitability’. For Perma, CF serves a similar function.

Point taken.

perma.cc is an interesting project, thanks for sharing.

other readers may be specifically interested in their contingency plan

https://perma.cc/contingency-plan

perma.cc is great. Also check out their tools if you want to get your hands dirty with your own archival process: https://tools.perma.cc/

Crossref is designed for publishing workflows. Not set up for ad hoc DOI registration. Not least because just registering a persistent identifier to redirect to an ephemeral page without arrangements for preservation and stewardship of the page doesn’t make much sense.

That’s not to say that DOIs aren’t registered for all kinds of urls. I found the likes of YouTube etc when I researched this about 10 years ago.

Would you have a recommendation for an organization that can register ad hoc DOIs? I am still looking for one.

It really depends what you’re trying to do. Make something citable? Findable? Permalink?

Crossref isn’t the only DOI registration agency. DataCite may be more relevant, although both require membership. Part of this is the commitment to maintaining the content.

You could look at Figshare or Zenodo? https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/archiving-a-github-r...

Then Rogue Scholar is worth a mention. https://rogue-scholar.org/

Sorry that doesn’t answer your question but maybe that’s a clue that DOIs might not be right for your use case?

> Websites change. Perma Links don’t.

Until the Cocos Islands are annexed by Australia.