URL at top-level, but phone/office at role-level

[konklone]

For legislators, their website (the url field) is stored among their top level data, but their phone and office fields are per-role.

But it seems like the website can change over time and/or along with the role (if they switch chambers, or potentially change names after marriage or some other thing).

Storing it at the top-level also means that websites don't get memorialized over time. This is a main reason the underlying congress-legislators data stores the url field per-role.

How about moving the website to be per-role and memorializing it there?

[dwillis]

The website url definitely can change over time, but earlier websites no longer exist once a member changes chambers. I'm not sure what value it would be to have non-working urls (and in some cases, urls that might work but would point to someone other than the member) in the API.

You could make the case that phone also fits this scenario, but office values don't disappear - those buildings and offices remain in existence.

[konklone]

I think memorialized URLs are actually more useful than memorialized phone numbers and office addresses, because you can look up an archived version of the website in the Internet Archive during the role's start/end window.

[dwillis]

That's a fair point. We'll do it.