Re: broken links in W3C documents and recommendations

On Feb 12, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Larry Masinter wrote:

>
> tools.ietf.org web site is run by the IETF Tools team. See http://tools.ietf.org/about 
> .
> (FWIW I was a member of the IETF Tools team for a while.)
>
> "The purpose of the TOOLS team is to provide IETF feedback and  
> guidance during the development of software tools to support various  
> parts of IETF activities."
>
> "The team may also develop prototypes of tools on servers separate  
> from the Secretariat servers. The team will however not be  
> responsible for management and maintenance of such servers."
>
> The home page notes: "Tools hosted by the secretariat are listed at http://www.ietf.org/tools 
> "
>
>
> Conclusion:
>
> Do not treat links to tools.ietf.org as permanent links.

Then the only reasonable attitude to take would be to refuse to link  
to them at all, since the Web is now such that links may well outlast  
the things they link to, and there is nothing anyone can or should do  
to stop this happening. I doubt if this is what the IETF intended,  
however. Maybe if this policy, of refusing to create ANY links or  
references to ANYTHING published by IETF Tools, were widely publicised  
and actually adopted, IETF might re-think its antediluvian policies  
and smell the Web coffee.

Pat Hayes

>
>
> Larry
> -- 
> http://larry.masinter.net
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-tag-request@w3.org [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org] On  
> Behalf Of Mark Baker
> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 10:34 AM
> To: Julian Reschke
> Cc: noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com; Dan Connolly; Larry Masinter; Ray  
> Denenberg, Library of Congress; www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: Re: broken links in W3C documents and recommendations
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de 
> > wrote:
>>
>> noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com wrote:
>>>
>>> ...
>>> I'm sympathetic to the notion that citations to IDs should be as  
>>> "work in
>>> progress".  I must say I don't find this an even slightly  
>>> compelling excuse
>>> as to why the content should disappear when the draft becomes  
>>> obsolete.  As
>>> a member of the community who has been repeatedly frustrated ...
>>
>> I probably should have mentioned that I also think removing the  
>> content is
>> the right thing.
>>
>> Thomas R. already pointed out that tools.ietf.org has historic  
>> drafts as
>> well, so my recommendation would be just to link there.
>
> FYI, tools.ietf.org also provides "latest" links, e.g.;
>
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-eastlake-cturi
>
> Mark.
>
>
>
>

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