Example of persistent link gone

On the page http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI, there is an example of 
a URL well constructed to be persistent:

<quote>
The only exception is a page which is deliberately a "latest" page for, 
for example, the whole organization or a large part of it.

http://www.pathfinder.com/money/moneydaily/latest/

is the latest "Money daily" column in "Money" magazine. The main reason 
for not needing the date in this URI is that there is no reason for the 
persistence of the URI to outlast the magazine. The concept of "today's 
Money" vanishes if Money goes out of production. If you want to link to 
the content, you would link to it where it appears separately in the 
archives as

http://www.pathfinder.com/money/moneydaily/1998/981212.moneyonline.html

(Looks good. Assumes that "money" will mean the same thing throughout 
the life of pathfinder.com. There is a duplication of "98" and an 
".html" you don't need but otherwise this looks a strong URI).
</quote>

Unfortunately, both example links are broken.  I know you have no 
control of the publisher, but it seems ironic, since Money magazine has 
not gone out of business.  Perhaps you can find another well-designed 
URL that is still in existence.

I found the later example of

<quote>
So a better example from our site is simply

http://www.w3.org/1998/12/01/chairs

a report of the minutes of a meeting of W3C chairpeople.
</quote>

to be somewhat humorous, unless the contents is really about furniture 
(couldn't verify since I don't have authorization to view).  But I guess 
that supports the theme that preferred terminology can change.
;-)

Barbs aside, I did appreciate the article.

Thad Smith

Received on Monday, 28 November 2005 17:18:03 UTC