MetaCPAN's https:// only nature prevents one from recommending its pages on stumbleupon.com

[shlomif]

Hi all,

StumbleUpon ( http://www.stumbleupon.com/home ) which is a web site recommendation and discovery service, has a policy against indexing https:// pages:

https://getsatisfaction.com/stumbleupon_help_center/topics/stumbleupon_should_treat_http_and_https_urls_as_the_same

Since the MetaCPAN web service is https:// only I cannot recommend its pages (including not the front page) on StumbleUpon . For more reasons why https:// only is a bad idea, see this module-authors@perl.org thread:

http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.module-authors/2011/07/msg9306.html

Please enable a dual http:// | https:// service of the pages.
Regards,

-- Shlomi Fish

[monken]

Hi Shlomi. I appreciate your feedback and I'm also aware of that discussion. We made that decision way back (see #157) on purpose, because having dual service would just screw up user authentication (cookies are secure, that means the user will be logged out if he visits the unsecured website). There are ways to fix that but I'd rather spend time on fixing real issues than that. There is also a strong movement of websites to go https-only. I don't see why we should move in the opposite direction.

The fact that SU does not support https is just another reason not to use it.

[shlomif]

Well, just because there's a trend of websites to go HTTPS-only does not mean MetaCPAN should follow it. The world will be a better place if people thought on their own and did not blindly follow trends. Like they say “Only dead fish go with the flow”.

I agree with StumbleUpon's reasons for not supporting HTTPS-only sites. Are there any other reasons not to use them? Are there significantly better alternatives?

Regards,

— Shlomi Fish

[oalders]

Hi Shlomi,

@monken isn't saying that we're opposed to having the site available over HTTP. The issue really is that there is a huge list of stuff that needs looking at. We're aware of this concern and that it's not a good fit for everyone, but it's low on the priority list. Having said that, if someone were to fix the underlying issues with cookies and user auth, we'd welcome the patch. There just aren't enough volunteers to handle everything we want to fix.

[shlomif]

Hi @oalders ,

OK, thanks for the clarification. I understood that as much. I understand why this is low priority and it is OK with me. No rush. Otherwise, if I ever find the tuits, I may try to fix it myself and send a pull request.

Regards,

-- Shlomi Fish

[ranguard]

Moving to wishlist: https://github.com/CPAN-API/cpan-api/wiki/Wishlist