[whatwg] Link rot is not dangerous

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 7:26 AM, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen at iki.fi> wrote:
> On May 18, 2009, at 14:45, Dan Brickley wrote:
>> Since there is useful information to know about FOAF properties and terms
>> from its schema and human-oriented docs, it would be a shame if people
>> ignored that. Since domain names can be lost, it would also be a shame if
>> directly de-referencing URIs to the schema was the only way people could
>> find that info. Fortunately, neither is the case.
>
> I wasn't talking about people but about apps dereferencing NS URIs to enable
> their functionality.

Specifically, people can use a search engine to find information about
foaf.  I know that typing "foaf" into my browser's address bar and
clicking on the first likely link is *way* faster than digging into a
document with a foaf namespace declared, finding the url, and
copy/pasting that into the location bar.

There are always decent search terms around to help people find the
information at least as easily, and certainly more reliably, than an
embedded url.

The "just use a search engine" position has been brought up by Ian
with respect to multiple cases in the overall discussion as well.  For
humans, search engines are just more reliable and easier to use than a
uri (at least, a uri in a non-clickable context).

~TJ