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

[vinton cerf]

see Digital Object Architecture (for DIgital Object Identifiers = DOI)

v


On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 5:25 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Sometimes you can find lost URLs' contents by looking at archive.org if
> you can remember the relevant URL.
>
> At one point in the '90s while I was on the W3C I lobbied for the
> introduction of a new form of URL - a "PURL" or permanent URL.   PURLs
> would have their content cached in a permanent database (akin to
> archive.org), so that if/when the URL ever disappeared the last content
> would still be available.  Someone creating web content who wanted it to
> have longevity would submit it as a PURL to that database, which would
> copy its contents and periodically check for changes.   The backend
> storage would be maintained and managed by W3C.
>
> Looking now from 2021, archive.org does provide a very similar service
> although I'm not sure how comprehensive it is.  Also, it's not clear
> whether or not popular search engines would find something that has
> disappeared as a URL, but is still present in the archive.org
> repository.  And like most other repositories, the survival of
> archive.org depends on some stream of continuous life support (funding,
> etc.)
>
> I've occasionally caught some corporation's misdeeds by such
> retrievals.  E.g., when a manufacturer promises that a product will do
> something, it's no longer sufficient for them to just change the
> product's web page to erase all traces of the promise.  Chances are it's
> in the archive still and they have a tough time claiming they never said
> that.
>
> /Jack
>
> On 5/8/21 1:45 PM, John Day via Internet-history wrote:
> > Couldn’t agree more.  A URL as a citation is practically useless. The
> Internet is not much of an archive.
> >
> >> On May 8, 2021, at 16:17, Brian E Carpenter <
> brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 09-May-21 02:44, Ole Jacobsen via Internet-history wrote:
> >> ...
> >>> I'll just note that there used to be a direct URL for ConneXions in
> the CBI
> >>> hosted publications archive, but that has recently changed. Another
> peril
> >>> of online museums.
> >> Indeed, and I wonder whether this august body could somehow try to
> change the thinking of archivists about that problem. Just over the last
> year or so, I've been digging in archives quite a bit (for
> doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2020.2990647 and a forthcoming follow-up) and even
> in that time, some URLs have rotted, which makes it annoying to go back and
> follow up a new detail, and invalidates published citations. Over the
> longer term, say 10 years, even more links rot and search results become
> misleading or useless.
> >>
> >> (Or maybe that's a topic for the SIGCIS list.)
> >>
> >> Regards
> >>   Brian Carpenter
>
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