141–150 of 236 posts
About 60k academic citations about to die - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=90&q=%22https://goo... Countless books with irrevocably broken references - https://www.google.com/search?q=%22://goo.gl%22&sca_upv=1&sc... And for what? The cost of keeping a few TB online and a little bit of CPU power? An absolute act of cultural vandalism.
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It's not the bytes. It's the fact that it's likely gonna be printed in a paper journal, where you can't click the link.
I find it amusing that you are complaining about not having a computer to click a link while glossing over the fact that you need a computer to use a link at all. This use case of "I have a paper journal and no PDF but a computer with a web browser" seems extraordinarily contrived. I have literally held a single-digit number of printed papers in my entire life while looking at thousands as PDFs. If we cared, we'd use…
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For people wanting to include URL references in things like books, what’s the right approach to take today? I’m genuinely asking. It seems like its hard to trust that any service will remaining running for decades
The full URl to the original page. You aren't responsible if things go offline. No more than if a publisher stops reprinting books and the library copies all get eaten by rats. A reader can assess the URl for trustworthiness (is it scam.biz or legitimate_news.com) look at the path to hazard a guess at the metadata and contents, and - finally - look it up in an archive.
We’ve learned over the years that they can be unreliable, security risks, etc.
I just don’t see a major use-case for them anymore.
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I find it amusing that you are complaining about not having a computer to click a link while glossing over the fact that you need a computer to use a link at all. This use case of "I have a paper journal and no PDF but a computer with a web browser" seems extraordinarily contrived. I have literally held a single-digit number of printed papers in my entire life while looking at thousands as PDFs. If we cared, we'd use…
I feel like all that is beyond the point. People used goo.gl because they largely are not tech specialists and aren't really aware of link rot or of a Google decision rendering those links unaccessible.
Anyone who is savvy enough to put a link in a document is well-aware of the fact that links don't work forever, because anyone who has ever clicked a link from a document has encountered a dead link. It's not 2005 anymore, the internet has accumulated plenty of dead links.
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It's not the bytes. It's the fact that it's likely gonna be printed in a paper journal, where you can't click the link.
I find it amusing that you are complaining about not having a computer to click a link while glossing over the fact that you need a computer to use a link at all. This use case of "I have a paper journal and no PDF but a computer with a web browser" seems extraordinarily contrived. I have literally held a single-digit number of printed papers in my entire life while looking at thousands as PDFs. If we cared, we'd use…
This is by no means a universal experience.
People still get printed journals. Libraries still stock them. Some folks print out reference materials from a PDF to take to class or a meeting or whatnot.
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I feel like all that is beyond the point. People used goo.gl because they largely are not tech specialists and aren't really aware of link rot or of a Google decision rendering those links unaccessible.
> People used goo.gl because they largely are not tech specialists and aren't really aware of link rot or of a Google decision rendering those links unaccessible. Anyone who is savvy enough to put a link in a document is well-aware of the fact that links don't work forever, because anyone who has ever clicked a link from a document has encountered a dead link. It's not 2005 anymore, the internet has accumulated plent…
About 60k academic citations about to die - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=90&q=%22https://goo... Countless books with irrevocably broken references - https://www.google.com/search?q=%22://goo.gl%22&sca_upv=1&sc... And for what? The cost of keeping a few TB online and a little bit of CPU power? An absolute act of cultural vandalism.
It wasn't a good idea to use shortened links in a citation in the first place, and somebody should have explained that to the authors. They didn't publish a book or write an academic paper in a vacuum - somebody around them should have known better and said something.
And really it's not much different than anything else online - it can disappear on a whim. How many of those shortened links even go to valid pages any more?
And no company is going to maintain a "free" service forever. It's easy to say, "It's only ...", but you're not the one doing the work or paying for it.
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> just for fun (but, of course, pay them for their work). Doing things for fun isn't in Google's remit
Then they shouldn't have offered it as a free service in the first place. It's like that discussion about how Google in all its 2-ton ADHD gorilla glory will enter an industry, offer a (near) free service or product, decimate all competition, then decide its not worth it and shutdown. Leaving a desolate crater behind of ruined businesses, angry and abandoned users.
Cloudflare offered to keep it running and were turned away: https://x.com/elithrar/status/1948451254780526609 Remember this next time you are thinking of depending upon a Google service. They could have kept this going easily but are intentionally breaking it.
Next time? I guess there’s a wave of new people that haven’t learned that that lesson yet.
About 60k academic citations about to die - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=90&q=%22https://goo... Countless books with irrevocably broken references - https://www.google.com/search?q=%22://goo.gl%22&sca_upv=1&sc... And for what? The cost of keeping a few TB online and a little bit of CPU power? An absolute act of cultural vandalism.
IMO it's less Google's fault and more a crappy tech education problem. It wasn't a good idea to use shortened links in a citation in the first place, and somebody should have explained that to the authors. They didn't publish a book or write an academic paper in a vacuum - somebody around them should have known better and said something. And really it's not much different than anything else online - it can disappear…