[whatwg] META and bookmarking

[Andy Valencia]

I'm in the throes of a media startup, and ran into one of those
issues which runs surprisingly deep.

Like many sites, my front page is a portal which sends the
user on to the actual source of content for that user on that
day.  In my case, it's a particular media server (after choosing
based on current load) plus a session token in the URL.  I've
been researching this, other cases are where the redirect URL reflects the
current day/edition/release.

The problem is if you like the site and decide to bookmark it--
including a home screen bookmark on mobile.  You're off on
a transient URL, which is not the right one to bookmark.  On
a desktop browser you can go into the extended dialog and
hand-modify the URL (some users could, others not so much).
On mobile, it can be difficult--on some devices even impossible.

I'm wondering if a <meta bookmark="url"> tag would be appropriate? This
would let a page which knows it's not a good long-term bookmark target to
suggest a better URL to use.  In its absence, of course
the current URL is used.

For security, you could claim that anywhere Bad it would send you
is a place the current page could have already sent you.  If the
page was served under HTTP, I guess a lame ISP could insert themselves.
Possibly recommend ignoring the value from non-HTTPS pages?  That
certainly aligns with Mozilla's stated intentions for future
features.

Thanks,
Andy Valencia