Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:59:54 -0400
From: Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Dealing with disappearing online sources
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
If the original source was reliable, and can be found
through
archive.org
or
something similar, then the obviously best approach is to replace the
broken
link with one that works. If the value of the reference can't be
determined,
but the statement it was referencing is not controversial (i.e. Vermont is
a
state in the United States) then simply remove the reference, maybe with a
note on the talkpage. If it is an "amazing claim" as Will states, then for
once he's right - the dead and unverifiable reference leaves the claim
unreferenced, and a {{fact}} tag is appropriate.
Nathan
I think we should be using
webcitation.org more often. It takes 6 months or
more for
web.archive.org to scrape a site.
Jonas Rand
User:Ionas68224