Transfer Renovate's togithub.com redirect domain to GitHub

[HonkingGoose]

Describe the proposed change(s).

Renovate's togithub.com redirect domain got blocked by GitHub's Umbrella protection system. This block is now reverted, so the redirect works properly again. But maybe having the domain controlled by GitHub officially is better.

@rarkins said:

I would be happy to transfer togithub.com to GitHub naturally - the community would benefit by being able to link to GitHub endpoints without triggering backlinks

I suspect something like https://to.github.com/ would be better long term, with a 301 permanent redirect from togithub.com to to.github.com. Alternatively having GitHub unblock togithub.com it is suitable :)

@gr2m offered to contact somebody from GitHub about transferring the domain to GitHub, and will ping us when they hear something.

Related discussion:

• https://togithub.com/ is currently blocked by OpenDNS #27568

[gr2m]

sure 👋

Can you explain why something like togithub.com is even needed? Why not just link directly to the correct github.com link?

[rarkins]

Direct links cause "backlink spam". The worst is when release notes include a username. That person could wake up to hundreds or thousands of GitHub notifications. But even merged PRs could get pages of annoying back links from every public repository which gets an upgrade PR referencing it

[HonkingGoose]

I'll assign both of you to the issue, because we need @gr2m for the making-contact-phase, and @rarkins later for the transfer.

[gr2m]

The worst is when release notes include a username. That person could wake up to hundreds or thousands of GitHub notifications

I don't think that happens if you escape them, which I think you already do? @gr2m -> [@gr2m](https://github.com/gr2m) (example). I just tried if the same works with links to avoid backlinks, but that didn't work. It seems not to matter what is used as label, the backlink shows up if the link is a valid issue URL

I only know the togithub.com redirect URLs from the package link, like here: semantic-release/semantic-release#3326, where it just links to the repository

This could be linked directly to the repository, right?

From what you are saying is that you replace all github.com links with the togithub.com domain?

[rarkins]

We replace all to be careful. Otherwise you can't escape them enough without breaking the links

[rarkins]

We also don't want the task of playing "catch up" every time there's some new way we discover to accidentally backlink and someone gets spammed for a while. This approach has been successful for years now!

[gr2m]

The problem is notification and backlink spam, right? Using togithub.com is a solution to that, but maybe there is something else that GitHub can do. I'll think about it and see if I find folks within GitHub to talk about it

[rarkins]

That's exactly right

[HonkingGoose]

The problem is notification and backlink spam, right? Using togithub.com is a solution to that, but maybe there is something else that GitHub can do.

What if as GitHub app creator you could select a backlink mode?

By default, GitHub would not show backlinks, to prevent bot/app creators from accidentally spamming a repository/users with links. The new default would be a breaking change compared to the current default behavior!

Currently GitHub will link back for every reference to an Issue or PR.

If you do want the app/bot to backlink to Issues, PRs, you can opt-in with a special toggle. This toggle should have clear text explaining the behavior you'll get, and ask again if you're sure! Like how GitHub asks you to be really sure and confirm again for "potentially dangerous/difficult to revert actions" like transferring repo ownership, making a private repo public and so on.

If GitHub wants to keep the current behavior as default, that's fine also. The main thing is to give app/bot creators a choice. And to give creators peace of mind they're not accidentally spamming users.

[HonkingGoose]

@oliviertassinari said: ¹

Dependabot uses redirect.github.com maybe a better option.

I'll let the maintainers decide which is best:

• Give our togithub.com domain to GitHub, or
• Drop our custom togithub.com domain, and use official redirect.github.com

If we decide to use the official redirect domain, we probably should ask for permission from GitHub first? That's because Renovate creates a lot of redirect links, and has a lot of users.

Footnotes

1. https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/discussions/10796#discussioncomment-10413066 ↩

[rarkins]

We should use redirect.github.com

[rarkins]

@HonkingGoose maybe let's open a new issue and supersede/close this one