On 16 Mar 2009, at 00:55, Michael Snow 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.
--Michael Snow
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.
How does the WMF plan to tackle this problem if attribution-by-link is used?
Mike Peel
* Note that these points have been raised several times before on this mailing list, but I've yet to see an adequate response, so I figure they deserve raising again.