Requests for comment/URL shortener

This is a request for comment about creating a URL shortening service for use by Wikimedia projects. Please leave your comments below.

Proposal
There are several cases in which it would be useful to have a URL shortener for MediaWiki URLs:


 * 1) Links in Echo notifications that are emailed or broadcast via XMPP
 * 2) Links to fundraiser landing pages that are posted to social media or sent via email
 * 3) URL sharing via the Mobile App
 * 4) File sharing from Commons
 * 5) For use by the WMF Communications Dept.

Currently there is Extension:ShortUrl, but the URLs generated by this extension are still limited by the length of our domain names.

The main thing we need is a short domain name. This would most likely have to be donated to us since short domain names aren't cheap. It would be best to use some sort of subdomain or path scheme to make it usable for all WMF projects:

e.g. lang.abbrev-site. .org/ or abbrev-site. .org/lang/ or .org/abbrev-site/lang/

Bugzilla 

Comments
Stand on the shoulders of giants (or maybe in this case, not giants). Use lilurl, which currently powers ur1.ca and others. --MarkTraceur (talk) 02:11, 14 November 2012 (UTC)