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Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

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Re: Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

#81

Post by gwern »

ScrumMistress wrote: post #38
alanh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember PC World started doing this back in like 2003. Makes sense, I think. But how are you solving the problem any better than a reader can armed with (1) the date on your cover, (2) the original URL, and (3) the Internet Archive Wayback Machine? Are you aggressively caching every page, even if you don’t make the cache public for a number of years?

Many links usually 301 redirect for a while before dying. Maybe it helps in those cases to update the shortened URL to point to the new link.

Do that automatically, and you'll wind up with a lot of broken URLs. Routinely, when fixing broken links on my own site, I punch something in the IA, click on the latest version - and get redirected to the root of some site or other. Not very useful. (The redirect also makes it hard to get back to the URL search results because the IA redirects you so fast that if you simply hit the 'back button', you won't go anywhere.)

Re: Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

#82

Post by gwern »

smsm42 wrote: post #77
elmuchoprez wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some sort of verified caching protocol. Like mixing together the Wayback Machine and a notary.

I wonder if archive.org would provide a paid authenticated (notarized) snapshot service, on-demand (i.e. by request and after payment, create a copy and guarantee it's not changed and deleted ever) - maybe they could even make some money out of the thing.

They pretty much do: http://archive-it.org/

Re: Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

#83

Post by gwern »

sbierwagen wrote: post #59
coldpie wrote: post #14

So, what's the solution, here? It seems reasonable for a court opinion to include a copy of the source, if possible. What about for something like a YouTube video, which could disappear at any time, but can't be represented on paper? How would you agree on a digital format for representing a supreme court opinion?

http://webcitation.org/

Given WebCite's financial woes, it wouldn't be a good idea to put too much emphasis on them.

Re: Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

#85

Post by jval »

dublinben wrote: post #41
jaysonelliot wrote: post #30

I publish a print magazine. Up to this point, we've avoided printing URLs in the magazine, because our printed issues may last longer than the links will stay live. To solve the problem, we're launching our own link shortener this month, and printing our own shortened links in the magazine. That way we can control what happens when link rot sets in, whether redirecting or caching content on our own servers if necessa…

I suggest you take a look at the perma.cc initative. There's no reason to reinvent the robust shortlink, and you won't be obligated to run this system forever.

This is cool, do the universities digitally archive copies of the stuff themselves or just Internet Archive on behalf of them?

Re: Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

#86

Post by ytjohn »

penguat wrote: post #46
dragonwriter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only way to definitively prove you saw content on a given date is to provide the content you saw. Providing a copy of the content that you claim is the source does not come anywhere close to definitively proving that that content is the content at the cited source on the identified date. All it does is provide what you claim to be the original source, which, assuming that you do it honestly, provides the conten…

I suppose anyone who wanted to be securely citable could provide some sort of checksum?

the md5sum of the plaintext between "start" and "stop" is part of the url

Re: Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

#87

Post by fr0sty »

ars wrote: post #80
jaysonelliot wrote: post #30

I publish a print magazine. Up to this point, we've avoided printing URLs in the magazine, because our printed issues may last longer than the links will stay live. To solve the problem, we're launching our own link shortener this month, and printing our own shortened links in the magazine. That way we can control what happens when link rot sets in, whether redirecting or caching content on our own servers if necessa…

> we're launching our own link shortener this month, and printing our own shortened links in the magazine. That way we can control what happens when link rot sets in, whether redirecting or caching content on our own servers if necessary (and allowed by copyright). That seems worse to me. Sometimes you can gain some info by just the hostname, and pages in the URL. Now all you'll see is random numbers. And are you rea…

> You have to do it by hand you know.

Periodically iterating through a set of links and comparing the returned content to a cached copy is trivial to implement.

Re: Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

#89

Post by brianfryer »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #30

I publish a print magazine. Up to this point, we've avoided printing URLs in the magazine, because our printed issues may last longer than the links will stay live. To solve the problem, we're launching our own link shortener this month, and printing our own shortened links in the magazine. That way we can control what happens when link rot sets in, whether redirecting or caching content on our own servers if necessa…

What a great idea and an interesting use of URL-shortening technology. Kudos!

Re: Aren't you glad you didn't cite this webpage?

#90

Post by dublinben »

jval wrote: post #85
dublinben wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you take a look at the perma.cc initative. There's no reason to reinvent the robust shortlink, and you won't be obligated to run this system forever.

This is cool, do the universities digitally archive copies of the stuff themselves or just Internet Archive on behalf of them?

From what I understand, all the member libraries are storing some part of the cache. They might not all have a complete copy, but the details aren't clear yet.
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