Why not just plain URLs? Properties that differ from ISBNs are that
- people don't instantly recognize them as permanent identifiers (but a new system would face the same)
- people might enter them into a browser (but that's not a bad thing, see DOIs)
- they're not constant length (but our modern databases can handle that).
Examples:
- urn:isbn:0-395-36341-1
- https://id.endor.at/26530
- http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/
- urn:nbn:de:bvb:91-diss20060308-1417541491 (see https://www.dnb.de/DE/Professionell/Services/URN-Service/urn-service_node.html)
chrysn
npub1st…99zp6
2026-08-11 05:39:38 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…g9jh
Author Public Key
npub1st5k4cl9vwxme9afyh2z6n08vwn06wfg2ypud62k30hsmrrrdyvs299zp6Seen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2026-08-11 05:39:38 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "4402510207d63e1fd5ae75c42f2d05b8f79486dbf9bbc6cb0433ddbaeb4be12c",
"pubkey": "82e96ae3e5638dbc97a925d42d4de763a6fd39285103c6e9568bef0d8c636919",
"created_at": 1786426778,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"70ce8b572b9d447a1370879f81507783413644c0cad1408a3eabc8a396089be1",
"",
"root",
"7423b0190c18e5676e1cc7d77d4fb21d4eec38a4661dc7024c607eda02faccd8"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://chaos.social/@chrysn/117075265352020435",
"web"
],
[
"p",
"7423b0190c18e5676e1cc7d77d4fb21d4eec38a4661dc7024c607eda02faccd8"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://chaos.social/users/chrysn/statuses/117075265352020435",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://chaos.social/users/chrysn/statuses/117075265352020435",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "Why not just plain URLs? Properties that differ from ISBNs are that\n- people don't instantly recognize them as permanent identifiers (but a new system would face the same)\n- people might enter them into a browser (but that's not a bad thing, see DOIs)\n- they're not constant length (but our modern databases can handle that).\n\nExamples:\n- urn:isbn:0-395-36341-1\n- https://id.endor.at/26530\n- http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/\n- urn:nbn:de:bvb:91-diss20060308-1417541491 (see https://www.dnb.de/DE/Professionell/Services/URN-Service/urn-service_node.html)",
"sig": "61fb58f8e2e9070e6c8378eb2f05973133b2356d3f7329d18f5c2bd02d6621a4c4e20fddd73586533f08d0414d2d5ce9cc4285d97cce775f9b128b761bdfa398"
}