Tag Archives: links

Fans of the permalink unite

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Sometimes forgetting is useful and necessary, but in web publishing the default option should be “never forget”. Unfortunately lots of big and resourceful organizations such as newspapers and public sector agencies rate among the worst when it comes to allowing link rot. So I was glad to see that at least The Guardian knows the value of the everlasting permalink. I know there are others on our side out there, such as The New York Times and Spiegel. In fact, all those could help the cause of the permalink by explaining what they gain financially from their open web archives. What is most difficult to understand about link rot is that it reduces the value of those archives. Who would want that?

In the meantime, we just have to conclude that it’s fairly simple to keep links working when switching systems, even simple bloggers can manage with a little help from their friends (link in Norwegian).

Breaking news: Journalists discover links

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Inspired by a Reuters piece on Wikipedia’s rise and rise, Editors Weblog recommends …linking:

“…the future newsroom may have an additional employee: a ‘link editor’ (if the position ever takes hold I’ll try to come up with a more original job title). The bearer of this responsibility would be charged with reading drafts of articles before they are published, adding any relevant links to names, places, events, etc., in the text. The journalist, as many of you may realize, does not have time to complete such a task.”

A link editor! To any blogger without a background in journalism it must sound like the most ridiculous idea ever. Of course it shouldn’t be necessary to even tell web journalists to link to the sources they use for a story, if available, or to additional sources. If anyone should love the hyperlink, it should be journalists. But believe me, it isn’t that way. I’ve spent more time than I like to think about trying to make stubborn or lazy colleagues link (*wipes forehead*).

Phew. I’ll try the positive approach… It must be seen as a major breakthrough and a sensational development that positive reports recognizing the power and importance of links start to turn up. After all, it isn’t long ago that newspaper publishers wanted to take people to court for making “deep links” (an absurd name for it) to their stories. They wanted to ban links!

(via teknomedia).