Michael Peel <[email protected]> wrote: >> Can we please drop the nonsense that a URL is "no attribution at >> all" in >> an offline context? I've made this point before, but URLs do not >> suddenly become devoid of meaning just because you're using a medium >> where you can't follow a hyperlink. I could just as soon say that >> print >> media aren't acceptable sources for Wikipedia articles because you >> can't >> check them by following a hyperlink, it's the same logic. We allow >> references that adapt the conventions of other media to our >> context, we >> should allow people using other media the same privilege in >> adapting our >> conventions to their context.
> The issue, from my point of view*, is that they do "suddenly become > devoid of meaning" as soon as those links stop working. This can > happen for a number of reasons, including article moves, deletions, > and (<insert deity> forbid) wikipedia.org going away. There are no > guarantees that I'm aware of that the links will continue to work for > even a decade, let alone the full length of copyright (and, given the > tendency to attribute authors even for PD works, afterwards). > On the other hand, a local copy of the author list (normally) stays > accessible as long as the work does. > [...] Is this problem really exclusive to online references? I'd guess there is plenitude of author references to "[...] et al." (or none at all) out there that cannot be resolved without access to a catalog or the source material itself and become "devoid of meaning" at the latest when these re- sources are destroyed or not accessible. If the shards of a coffee mug with a URL attribution get excavated 100 years in the future, I think a bit of research on the part of the archaeologists can be asked for. Tim _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
