[ih] Link rot (was: Museum archiving (was: Re: IENs))

[Bernie Cosell]

On May 8, 2021 16:46:29 John Day via Internet-history 
<internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Couldn’t agree more.  A URL as a citation is practically useless. The 
> Internet is not much of an archive.

actually, even traditional citations aren't much help.   if a paper cites
something like "annals of esoterica, june 1939" that strikes me as not
much help. and even if you somehow learned that there was a copy
of that journal, but it was in a library in serbo-Croatia
{that may or may not still exist - the real world analogue of link rot} what
help is that.

my view is that providing permanent usable citations isn't well solved.
and I'm not sure that the problem of link rot isn't potentially more
solvable than links to dead tree references.  for example, at least digital
reference docs are easily replicated and links could be repaired.

/b\

                     Bernie Cosell
           bernie at fantasyfarm. com
— Too many people,  too few sheep —