ARK persistence policy

Version 2026-10-16. Identifiers: https://writerslogic.com/ark:<NAAN>/<name>. Specification followed: draft-kunze-ark-43 (an evolving Internet-Draft).

Who is responsible

WritersLogic operates this ARK service as the Name Assigning Authority and Name Mapping Authority for the identifiers it publishes under its NAAN. WritersLogic creates or curates the documents, datasets and descriptive or provenance records it identifies.

Identifier permanence

An identifier, once issued, is never reassigned to a different object, never reused and never deleted from the registry, including identifiers that were reserved but not published.

Names are opaque, lowercase, and end in a Noid check character. The check character catches common transcription errors; it is not a signature and does not prove authorship, ownership or authenticity of anything.

A separately published version of a work receives its own identifier, linked to related versions with isVersionOf, hasVersion, replaces and isReplacedBy relations. A change that makes the object a different thing gets a new identifier.

Permitted changes

Descriptive metadata and the destination URL may change, for example to correct a title, update rights information or move a file. Every change is recorded in an audit history. The identity of the object behind the identifier stays the same.

A record may state its content variance using the ARK Alliance's draft persistence vocabulary: frozen (unchanging bitstream), keeping (unchanging content), fixing (subject to correction) or rising (subject to active enhancement). The vocabulary is a draft and may change.

Redirects are served as temporary redirects with short cache lifetimes so that a changed destination takes effect within minutes.

Withdrawal

If an object is withdrawn, its identifier keeps resolving to a tombstone page (HTTP 410) that states the identifier, the resource type, the withdrawal date and a short reason. The title is shown only if the record was public. Withdrawal is permanent for that identifier.

Restricted access

A record marked restricted is acknowledged to exist but its title, creator, description and destination are not disclosed in any representation.

What WritersLogic preserves

Preserved: the identifier, its descriptive record, relations and audit history in the WritersLogic registry, and files that a record marks as managed (hosted by WritersLogic with a recorded SHA-256 checksum).

Not preserved: content at externally hosted destinations. WritersLogic will update the destination if it is told of a new location but does not guarantee those hosts.

The registry is backed up with Cloudflare D1 point-in-time recovery and periodic portable exports; restore never re-opens an issued name.

Linked identifiers and signed assertions

A record may state that it is identical to, or related to, a DOI or another ARK, and may name a creator ORCID iD. These are statements by WritersLogic; they are not verified or endorsed by the DOI or ORCID registries.

On request (Accept: application/jwt) a record's public metadata is available as a JSON Web Signature made with a key listed in the did:web:writerslogic.com document and named in the signature header. The signature shows that WritersLogic published that metadata at the stated time. It does not show that the record is unchanged since, and the identifier itself remains only a label.

Migration and continuity

If WritersLogic moves the service to other infrastructure, the same identifiers will resolve at the new location. If WritersLogic ceases operating the service, it will transfer the registry export to a successor organization and ask the ARK Alliance to update the NAAN registration, so that the identifiers continue to resolve.