Site feedback: fragmentation needs consolidation

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1

i’m open to and seeking CONSTRUCTIVE criticism on this.

i propose we transition from a weak fragmented presence, to a strong consolidated presence.

from:

whycardano.com

cardanodocs.com

cardanoroadmap.com

cardanoexplorer.com

cardanofoundation.org

to:

docs.cardano.org

explorer.cardano.org
foundation.cardano.org

wiki.cardano.org
etc

…
for those not technically savvy, implementing this is not difficult and wouldn’t take long. the upsides are as exponential as the downsides, which i hope to demonstrate to you here.

also:

something.cardano.org
can also be / is interchangeable with
cardano.org/something

some people might prefer cardano coming first then the forward slash from a readability and memorability standpoint.

what’s the difference?
the second list all live under one home: cardano.org

an apt analogy might be a boat with many holes spread out vs. a boat with one hole.

ok. so, why?

on the surface it may seem that i’m advocating for centralisation over decentralisation. nah, :no_good_man:.

far from it.

in implementing the proposed model, i believe we would have the upsides of centralisation (security, efficiency etc) without its downsides (agglomeration of power, unaccountability, disincentivisaition etc) enforced by the upsides of decentralisation (distributed authority with incentivisation, transparency, accountability etc)

so practically,
from a security standpoint the current implementation is poor.
from a communications standpoint the current implementation is poor.

from a security standpoint, the current implementation is quite insecure in a number of dimensions (attack surface and attack vectors).

what do you mean?

perhaps an example can help me illustrate.

once upon a time there live a bad actor. bad actor as their name would suggest had nefarious motivations. and so one day bad actor decides to put into motion one of many schemes and buys cardanostaking.com (a domain name that many would fall for cause the community already is used to this lack of consistency, they would think to themselves subconsciously it’s not like staking is spelt with a one in place of the “i” or cardano with a zero in place of the “o”, the site probably even ssl certified you know a secure “https” site, green padlock and everything).

on it, cardanostaking.com, bad actor proceeds to mimic the typical style of what cardano stuff looks like (easy to do as there’s close to no consistency in branding). bad actor then proceeds to plant misinformation targeting to trick an unaware audience, like say getting people to send ada to a wallet owned/controlled by bad actor. these could even be presented as multiple options, as a list of established and or fake staking pools, only the wallets have been switched. now, keep in mind the amount people would be wanting to use for staking is not a small amount. with such an attack, the attacker would only need to land a few victims for a HUGE payout, and so would be willing to out in the time into the deception.

you can think of attack surface as a tree trunk, and attack vectors as the branches of the tree. the more trees/surface (websites), the more exponential branches/vectors (hacks, social or technical)

with the proposed model, we can better protect from a great number of attacks from surface level attacks like ddos attacks (flooding the servers with automated fake traffic so that it’s overwhelmed, making it drastically unavailable or entirely) protect them more efficiently and effectively, to others such as domain spoofs (slight alterations of a website name that then leads to a website created by the bad actor) drastically limiting the attack surface and as a byproduct the attack vectors within each one of those surfaces. making it a lot harder for attack vectors like social engineering.

as for from a communications standpoint, it’s a bit more self evident. having a single point that people can trust to contribute and consume content is a lot more effective. without it we have problems like those we’ve been experiencing with translation. frustrations stemming from a lack of structure and or prioritisation, not to mention duplicative efforts.

…
so in a nutshell, that’s the proposal.
…
the following already comply to this model:

staking.cardano.org
help.cardano.org

…

i’ve been giving it some thought for sometime now, recently spoke about it with @anon20038177 i now thought i’d get a broader perspective on this matter.

4 Likes
2

All of the domains you mention except one are official initiatives. The wiki is of course a community initiative. Should all community initiatives be gathered under cardano.org? That would seem rather impractical – not to say unworkable. But if not, how to determine which qualify for that honour?

3

from your response, i understand you think things are just fine, and there’s no need to do nor give thought to a single thing!

so, assuming that you’re either relatively “technical” enough to understand the threat model i outlined, or aren’t but understood the simplified illustrative examples i gave.

do you not see the scale and cost both ways? (the downside and the upside)

because if your issue is with practicalities of implementation - that needs as a prerequisite acknowledgment of the problem.

4

In my view the value of keeping community initiatives independent outweighs your concerns.

5

care to actually give an actual explanation?

or is your intent to just dismiss that which you don’t understand.

6

I don’t like your style and this has no chance of happening anyway, so I’m out. Byee! :grin:

7

perhaps something that’s more than a dismissive sentence in response to paragraphs upon paragraphs.

what i proposed would result in more independence, more engagement, more security.

if you understood it, or even read it - you basically just said that you’re against a more independent, more engaged and more secure cardano community.

Or put differently - you basically just said that you’re for a less independent, less engaged and less secure cardano community.

Is this arrogance, ignorance or just senility?

8

:clap: :clap: :clap:

9

Makes perfect sense for consistent branding.

Additionally, the inconsistent naming of a collection of legit sites is fertile ground for scams.

Technically, I know this not very expensive to do and does not require central control of content. It’s simply a matter of binding consistent names to IP addresses of respective servers.

1 Like
10

I feel that all official sites should adopt a very difficult to emulate domain structure, especially for all official downloads.

I also feel there should be an official wiki page with custodians that officially represent the project and can properly vet all content. The nature of this project being a financial system should have a comprehensive, highly maintained, 100% accurate repository of relevant information that could answer any question related to Cardano. All external links to other cardano.org sites from this wiki / help desk should have some sort of verified status (special color, font identifier). All external links to 3rd party resources (regardless if recognized, vetted, financed by CF / DAO) should show a “leaving cardano.org” warning (despite how annoying these things are).

I feel all other domains that look or sound similar to cardano.org should be acquired by domain extension (.com, .io, .net, .etc…) including the most easy to disguise misspellings carrdano, cardan0, cordano, corrdano etc, and all their major domain extensions. Cloudfare equivalent protection should be established across the domain. Management of this should be rigorous.

I feel the headers of each site should possibly be identical and highlight cardano.org as the official domain (or whatever is decided). I would almost go as far to suggest that cardano.org be included in an alternative official cardano logo. Perhaps if the other efforts of domain consistency are extensive, this may not be necessary. All social media accounts (and fan sites) should repeat the idea that only cardano.org should be trusted. The idea should be so prevalent and consistent across all media that emulating this look and feel on a malicious site would be very difficult.

In it’s current state, the wiki project does not fit into this category and I feel it should be made more clear that it is an unofficial community project, regardless of how accurate it is.

1 Like
11

Most people know what “wiki” means. Anybody can edit it. So its content cannot be considered canonical. If you want certainty, seek it elsewhere.

12

just to have it mentioned: this discussion is not fully new.

but now there might be more people taking care of it, so good.

3 Likes
13

This is not a nice answer and in no way provides any counter-arguments. I think that the original post of @misteraxyz is very reasonable and should be discussed in a factual and friendly way.

1 Like
14

I was referring to his style in other posts in this thread and in other threads. He resorts to ad hominem very readily and I’ve decided not to respond to him in future. I have no particular argument with his main point in the OP, just the inclusion of the wiki in the arrangement, as unlike the other sites mentioned it’s a community initiative, not an official one.

15

Yes most likely. The suggestion was to put the wiki under the umbrella of the official domain (wiki.cardano.org) to which I agree and disagree.

I feel there should be an official resource that serves this function and I feel that as a decentralized project it should be possible to have community contributions. (maybe not called wiki in this case)

In order to reduce clutter and organize this content without repetition and/or potential misinformation, perhaps it can act more like a hybrid between community contribution and yet officially managed resource. It’s the critical nature of the content that should be treated more like a banking FAQ which has perfect representation of 100% accurate data more than a wiki page about Alexander the Great where subjectivity has more of a place.

I’m not against the current wiki in it’s form by any means, but continuing my rough analogy, it feels that I would never see a wiki page for https://bankaust.com.au/ for example, but I would certainly expect a fairly comprehensive, officially managed resource that is guaranteed to be free of misinformation. Whatever this resource should be called, it should fall under cardano.org (or whatever is decided).

I’m in agreement with you that the wiki could remain as it is, and disagreeing with OP that in it’s current form, the wiki should be under the cardano.org domain.

I’m suggesting that in order to reduce duplication and yet have a one stop resource for everything Cardano, the concepts could be combined. Perhaps it’s a matter of finding more appropriate terminology for the function I’m trying to describe. something.cardano.org - community contributions / suggestions - official vetting - high assurance domain management - considered accurate and authoritative.

16

Thank you.

something.cardano.org - community contributions / suggestions - official vetting - high assurance domain management - considered accurate and authoritative.

Wouldn’t it be easier all round if it was simply, fully official? Of course community could still make suggestions.

17

Yes. :slightly_smiling_face:

Properties of a wiki but managed in the best way that it can be considered authoritative and therefore fall under something.cardano.org.

I think it would be unnecessary for both (an outside wiki and an official equivalent authoritative resource) if all effort could be properly channeled into the official resource. A good example would be of the mind map in this case https://cardanowiki.info/wiki/Cardano_Mind_Map. I feel it would be best to have the relationships corrected where they may be inaccurate or incomplete. A community generated resource that if it’s considered valuable, could be moderated by hired custodians for accuracy and eventually achieve status as authoritative.

Regardless, this project would require appropriately funded resources to maintain and probably shouldn’t be left only to passionate community contributors.

18

i appreciate your considerate constructive contributions @Herr_Rossi, @canopus & @rjmcoin . :bowing_man:

@rjmcoin could you please quote where i’ve said or even alluded to your “in it’s current form” statement. if you can find it please do reference it in your response - if not please edit your statement accordingly to reflect the facts.

i’m quite sure as i’m diligent with my words, that i’ve never been for @RobJF’s wiki in its former, current, future or any form for that matter. as is evidence by omission in this thread, and explicitly in others like wiki guy retires and wiki transition.

19

i appreciate your considerate constructive contributions @Herr_Rossi, @canopus & @rjmcoin . :bowing_man:

@rjmcoin could you please quote where i’ve said or even alluded to your “in it’s current form” statement. if you can find it please do reference it in your response - if not please edit your statement accordingly to reflect the facts. (no mention of “@RobJF’s wiki” in the from listing (every other domain has a corresponding from-to) then note how the (new) wiki in the to listing is deliberately separated)

i’m quite sure (as i’m diligent with my words) that i’ve been for a wiki - NEVER been for “@RobJF’s wiki” in its former, current, future or any form for that matter. as is evidence by deliberate omission in this thread, and explicitly in other threads like wiki guy retires and wiki transition.

misconstruing and perpetuating a sociopathic egotistic delusional assumption that any wiki would somehow automatically be “his” wiki/version - is doing all of us a disservice.

ok. evidence?

20

Perhaps I should have said,

“I’m in agreement with you that the wiki could remain as it is, and disagreeing with the implication that wiki.cardano.org should be applied to the state of the Cardano wiki, in it’s current form.”

I spent a few paragraphs explaining how I feel this idea could be achieved and how the traditional concept (and functions) of wiki maybe should not apply for such a resource, and thus perhaps also not apply, the “wiki” name.

In short, I’m agreeing with the idea a faq that involves community contributions could come under the cardano.org domain and that it should involve more specific moderation than a typical wiki project to achieve authoritative status.