- Sep 2022
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www.w3.org www.w3.org
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When two years is a typical length of stay, information is constantly being lost.
Thirty years on, we're still losing stuff. (You could even argue that the Web—as it has been put in practice, at least—has exacerbated the problem.)
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- Jul 2021
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robustlinks.mementoweb.org robustlinks.mementoweb.org
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I like the hovercard-like UI that enables one to see prior versions of links on a page. It would be cool to have this sort of functionality built into preview cards for these as well.
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Jonathan Zittrain</span> in The Rotting Internet Is a Collective Hallucination - The Atlantic (<time class='dt-published'>07/08/2021 22:07:17</time>)</cite></small>
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www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
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A solid overview article about the architectural deficiencies of the web for long term archival and access as well as some ideas for fixing the issue and a plea to attempt to make things better for the future.
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John Bowers, Elaine Sedenberg, and I have described how that might work, suggesting that libraries can again serve as semi-closed archives of both public and private censorial actions online. We can build what the Germans used to call a giftschrank, a “poison cabinet” containing dangerous works that nonetheless should be preserved and accessible in certain circumstances. (Art imitates life: There is a “restricted section” in Harry Potter’s universe, and an aptly named “poison room” in the television adaptation of The Magicians.)
I love this idea of a poison cabinet or giftschrank.
How might this work in an oral society? How would it be designed?
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Suppose Google were to change what’s on that page, or reorganize its website anytime between when I’m writing this article and when you’re reading it, eliminating it entirely. Changing what’s there would be an example of content drift; eliminating it entirely is known as link rot.
We don't talk about content drift very much. I like that some sites, particularly wiki sites, actually document their content drift in diffs and surface that information directly to the user. Why don't we do this for more websites? The Wayback machine also has this sort of feature.
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- Feb 2021
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maggieappleton.com maggieappleton.com
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The transclusion doesn't automatically change along with it. If transclusions were direct embeds of the original content, we'd end up with link rot on a whole new scale. Every document would be a sad compilation of 404's.
Thinking about Git repositories, this is how submodules work. you 'freeze' the 'transclusion' to one exact commit and can update if and when needed. Moreover, the contents are stored within the local repository, so they are future-proof.
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- Dec 2019
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wellcomeopenresearch.org wellcomeopenresearch.org
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1
Given that this document cites a number of non-persistent web resources, I have archived a copy of https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/4-170/v1 at http://web.archive.org/web/20191224000829/https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/4-170/v1 using the "Save outlinks" mode.
Probably a good idea to do this routinely for all articles in the journal.
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https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/205944/WHO_HIS_SDS_2016.2_eng.pdf;jsessionid=A4CF65ABC4B7A3FF8C19502C4EF9905F?sequence=1.
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https://www.who.int/blueprint/what/research-development/guidance_for_managing_ethical_issues.pdf?ua=1.
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Available at: https://cioms.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/WEB-CIOMS-EthicalGuidelines.pdf.
This URL seems very unstable, so I archived the file at http://web.archive.org/web/20191223233751/https://cioms.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/WEB-CIOMS-EthicalGuidelines.pdf .
In general, it is good practice to provide not just links but also an archived version when citing a URL.
Of course, it would be even better if policies themselves were FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable), as discussed, for instance, in https://github.com/Daniel-Mietchen/events/blob/master/PIDapalooza-2018.md .
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