Timestamped URLs as persistent identifiers

Uniform and persistent resource identifiers play a crucial role for sustainable data management and reuse in evolving knowledge graphs. Recent work identified explicit resource revisioning and immutability as important but insufficiently implemented and standardized components of corresponding data management systems. We propose the implementation of a global, persistent identifier system built upon time-based immutable resource revisioning of generic HTTP resources, as identified by their URL and resolved via time-based HTTP content negotiation, building upon existing Web standards. Supporting both distributed resource archival and state synchronization, the system would provide solutions to the problems of citation (referencing particular resource revisions), archiving (retrieving specific revisions), synchronization (change monitoring), and sustainability (preserving at scale, ensuring long-term access).