2023-12-12 Technical WG Agenda and Notes

Nov 9 CDL told us that arks.org was converted from Wordpress to github pages on Nov 8, and that the n2t.net resolver would be converted Nov 27; we don't know if that's happened

summary of events since last time; renewed call to add events

ARK spec transition update

Proposed stakeholders to approach

• FamilySearch, Portico, BnF, Smithsonian, CDL/EZID, IA, Frick
• Code bases: OJS plugin, arklet, arknoid, EZID

Approach with questionnaire?

• Do you currently support resolution of both ark: and ark:/ ?
• Would you be willing to go through this spec transition together with the ARKA Tech WG?

tc: who at smithsonian?
jk: ricc ferrante
tc: we could approach HathiTrust and DPC as stakeholders in their role as service providers
rm: as a board member, I can say that DPC doesn't endorse any software, but it may be useful that they do things like TechWatch reports
rm: maybe approach ARKetype as a stakeholder?
jk: maybe an inducement to stakeholders to be able to influence transition timing

Understanding and monitoring ARK Alliance (ARKA) infrastructure.

• Since Nov 8, the arks.org site is driven from master files at github, and we urgently need to share understanding and permissions more broadly
• We used to have 20 people, mostly members of ARKA working groups, with write access, and currently there is only one such person with write access
• There are many deferred maintenance task, including blog posts and a deadline for moving documents from the lyrasis wiki to arks.org

dw: yes we need better communication about N2T
tc: what about opening all the source?
dw: open governance isn't the same as open source
dw: here's a note from the creator of the open-source Clojure programming language on this issue: https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba9519972d9
tc: need more visibility into what's going on with the infrastructure
dw: ok to have a standing agenda item about infrastructure status with liaison that has read access to the ARKA issues list
jk: maybe emailed monthly report?

kh: I'm able to help with text conversion of lyrasis wiki

The n2t.net resolver either already has or will soon transition to a new resolution regime

• ARKA needs tighter communication about infrastructure status, especially large changes such as this
• Propose a new standing agenda item at every ARK Tech meeting check in on current infrastructure status and envisioned changes

Understanding the new github-based arks.org

(from Dave Vieglais)

The content on arks.org comes from the https://github.com/arks-org/arks.github.io repository.

Deployment of changes to arks.org is not automatic, but the manual process is straight forward with a git pull from the main branch of the arks.github.io repository, followed by a build on the arks.org server.

As far as managing what goes into the main branch, general best practices for git management should be followed. So develop on a separate branch (within the repo or fork a copy) and make a PR for merging into the main branch. Keep in mind that the main branch should always be representing what is to be shown on arks.org.

Rendering of drafts is best done locally by the editor. Currently the main branch is rendered to https://arks-org.github.io/arks.github.io/ with a GitHub action, so that can be used as kind of a release preview before being pulled to arks.org.

This entire process will likely be modified to deploy automatically to arks.org when changes are made on the main branch or perhaps when a tag is made.

With respect to the Lyrasis Confluence wiki, there are tools that enable conversion from there to Markdown (e.g. https://github.com/sjones4/confluence-to-github ), and certainly at a minimum a confluence export should be done to ensure content is preserved.

I would suggest keeping the FAQ and other content from Lyrasis in a GitHub wiki, perhaps in the arks-org/arks.github.io repository at https://github.com/arks-org/arks.github.io/wiki (GH wiki content lives separately from the main repository, though can be managed just like a Git repo).

dw: so (1) suggest change, (2) merge to main branch (needs write access), (3) rebuild https://arks-org.github.io/arks.github.io/ preview (happens automatically via GitHub Action), (4) pull latest of main branch to remote server that hosts arks.org (needs login/write access to server). ?

dw: issue: there is no publicly visible GH wiki at https://github.com/arks-org/arks.github.io (i.e. https://github.com/arks-org/arks.github.io/wiki). Is there one visible to repository collaborators?
jk: none visible yet but I think we just have to create it