Serve icons from i.dreamwidth.org subdomain

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Serve icons from i.dreamwidth.org subdomain

Area:
icons, security, making things make sense

Summary:
Start serving icons from i.dreamwidth.org (or another reserved subdomain) instead of www.dreamwidth.org/userpic/.

Description:
"Userpic" is being phased out, and "icon" is being adopted (though it will probably take years for some of us to get used to it).

felicity_ in IRC pointed out that there are security reasons to prefer images being served from their own subdomain.

Dreamwidth has thoughtfully reserved single-letter subdomains, and in any case 'icons' is a community in active use, and 'icon' is a community as well (albeit private and unused by its creator). 'i' is a shorter subdomain in any case.

On the face of it it seems like making the change and going forward with it is probably a very good thing.

It would disrupt legacy links that people have made in the past to their icons (though service is in beta, luggage may shift during flight) unless backwards compatibility is put in. I don't know whether the security implications of user images served off the main domain applies if there's a redirect from the main domain to a subdomain.

Poll #5520 Serve icons from i.dreamwidth.org subdomain

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 52

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
20 (38.5%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
3 (5.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
0 (0.0%)

(I have no opinion)
28 (53.8%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.9%)