Request for Archival Resource Key (ARK) external link template

Question

One of the banes of genealogy citations is link rot.  Wikitree has addressed this with external link templates.  A broader initiative to tackle the problem is through the use of Archival Resource Keys, or ARKs, which are designed to be stable, persistent identifiers.  FamilySearch is the biggest user of ARKs in the world and you will find the designator on most of their page URLs (e.g. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9BSH-9W9B).

Another popular genealogy resource that uses ARKs is archive.org.  You won't find ARK in the URL however.  For example, a page from the 1930 census is found at https://archive.org/details/15thcensus1950unit/page/n707/mode/2up.  This URL may not be permanent.  If you scroll down the page, you'll find the ark identifier:

Identifier-ark  

ark:/13960/t18k7z78n

ARKs can be used with the Network-2-Thing translator to direct any ARK reference to the correct location.  In the above example, https://n2t.net/ark:/13960/t18k7z78 will be re-directed to the correct archive.org page.

I'd like to request a Wikitree external link template for ARKs, possibly {{ARK|<archival resource key>}} like {{ARK|13960/t18k7z78n}} that would be linked or re-directed by n2t.exe.  Thank you.

References:

1. ARK Alliance
2. Name to Thing resolver (n2t.net)
3. Wikipedia article on ARKs
4. ARK presentations at the Spring 2020 Coaltion for Networked Information Conference (pdf)

Please note that n2t.net for FS ARK is not currently working correctly as the hyphens in the ARK are being stripped out.

Answer 1

The primary reason to use a template to create a link rather than using a conventional link is so that it can be easily kept up-to-date.

Since an archival resource key is persistent, it would (in theory) never change. Doesn't this then negate the need for a template?

Comments

That is something I considered.  I was thinking of a couple of things when making the request.  It's been reported here that some FamilySearch citations have devolved to giving only the ark: portion of the URL so there's nothing to click on (I can't find the 'question' but I confirmed the example).  I was thinking largely of Wikitree Sourcer which can fix that problem (and I guess really already does) but would also be able to construct templates using metadata or page source code from Internet Archive and possibly others (some Hathitrust pages may use ARK identifiers).  But you're right, anyone can create their own URL from an ARK using n2t.net without the use of a template.  Maybe no one would use it other than me unless Wikitree Sourcer incorporated it.  Is there a downside to creating the template?

As an aside, I reported the problem with FamilySearch ARKs not resolving correctly and it's being looked into.

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Is there a downside to creating the template?

One issue would be in GEDCOM exports. It is much easier to understand that a link generated by the "{{FamilySearch Image}}" template links to an image on FamilySearch.

But what would an "{{ARK}}" template link to? N2T.net... N2T is just a resolver, not the original publisher.

Then there would also be an issue in crossover templates. Using the FamilySearch example from earlier, members could then use:

{{FamilySearch Image|77JV-NZ4X|2}}

or 

{{ARK|61903/3:2:77JV-NZ4X}}

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I completely agree that it makes the most sense to use the FamilySearch template for links to that site.  There are more than a thousand organizations capable of generating ARKs but perhaps not as many as I hoped, beyond the Internet Archive, that are of genealogical significance.  As I may be the only person interested, I withdraw my request.  Thanks.