{"id":38822,"date":"2013-09-27T17:11:18","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T23:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/27\/somethings-link-rotten-at-the-supreme-court.html"},"modified":"2013-09-27T20:12:54","modified_gmt":"2013-09-28T02:12:54","slug":"somethings-link-rotten-at-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/27\/somethings-link-rotten-at-the-supreme-court.html","title":{"rendered":"Something's (Link) Rotten at the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
"Link Rot" (or "Bit Rot" for the more techies among you) is the phenomenon of "things on the Internet change and go away or get reorganized, which means that links to those things stop working." \u00a0It's a well-known problem on the Internet. Any number of things can cause it, from people moving their material somewhere else or sites shutting down (all those old Geocities links are pretty rotten), reorganize them (redoing your blogging software is a great way to have that happen). \u00a0<\/p>\n

(Another way that can happen is if you use an URL-shortening service, like bit.ly<\/a>; if that service ever shuts down, as some have, all those redirected links are lost, even if the original material is still where it was.)<\/p>\n

I know for a fact that there are a lot<\/i> of links on my blog that have rotted away without my knowing it. When I do run across it, I try to fix it, but sometimes that's just not possible.<\/p>\n

Of course, my blog isn't a collection of major historical documents \u00a0that are cited and used to educate and litigate. \u00a0Unlike, say, the Supreme Court's rulings and opinions. Which, where they include links to online material, are rotting at an alarming rate — one estimate has half<\/i> the links cited in SCOTUS opinions being dead.<\/p>\n

(Of the ones that aren't, it's worth noting that some web pages get updated and changed, too — a page of statistics or test results that an opinion points to may be revised in the future, with little or no sign of having been so.)<\/p>\n

Since links, as citations, often help illuminate the basis for a ruling and the thinking behind it, that makes it harder to understand (especially over time) why a justice ruled a certain way, weakening their own legal legacy as well as adding uncertainty as to precedent.<\/p>\n

If SCOTUS is going to point to web pages as citations, they probably ought to take PDF snapshots of the material and store it as backup somewhere. At a minimum, the ought to include pertinent pull quotes both to illuminate and provide a basis for searching to see if the material has moved elsewhere. \u00a0Otherwise, their thinking and rulings are increasingly dust in the wind (no matter what else you might consider them).<\/p>\n

(Note: this also applies to use of web page citations in academic papers and other formal documents of the sort.)<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

In Supreme Court Opinions, Web Links to Nowhere<\/a>
\n According to a new study, 49 percent of the hyperlinks in Supreme Court decisions no longer work.\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

"Link Rot" (or "Bit Rot" for the more techies among you) is the phenomenon of "things on the Internet change and go away or get reorganized, which means that links to those things stop working." \u00a0It's a well-known problem on the Internet. Any number of things can cause it, from people moving their material somewhere … Continue reading “Something's (Link) Rotten at the Supreme Court”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-blogging","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3784,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/28\/bit_rot.html","url_meta":{"origin":38822,"position":0},"title":"Bit Rot","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 28-Mar-03 7:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"Some people blog to rant about things, and thus get it out of their system. I blog for posterity. No, that sounds a bit pretentious, I know, but I was...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129575,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/30\/battling-link-rot-with-amber.html","url_meta":{"origin":38822,"position":1},"title":"Battling link rot with Amber","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 30-Jan-16 3:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I have no idea how many of the links on this 15-year-old blog are no longer good -- but I know when I've tracked down articles in the past here I've far too often run into broken ones.I'm going to give Amber a look-see to determine if this might be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1148,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/10\/a_most_impalpab.html","url_meta":{"origin":38822,"position":2},"title":"A most impalpable hit!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Oct-01 3:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"My hit count has nosedived the past few days, hopefully because new material has been intermittent at best, and not because everyone despises my Tales from the Disneyverse. Interstingly, what...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19553,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/14\/nicer-twitter-archive-links.html","url_meta":{"origin":38822,"position":3},"title":"Nicer Twitter archive links","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 14-Dec-10 6:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been using Twitter Tools for quite some time to daily archive my Twitter feed to this blog (which, reviewing the last year, is how I handled most stuff that was personal in nature). \u00a0\u00a0That's worked out pretty well, aside from TT's tendency to sometimes be a little ... enthusiastic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging - Technical"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging - Technical","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogging-technical"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/secret_code.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2141,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/03\/you_must_respec.html","url_meta":{"origin":38822,"position":4},"title":"You must respect my phenominae!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 3-Mar-02 8:07pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This article claims that, whether or not blogging is a fad, it's having a distinct impact on the web ... in particularly, Google. First, Google likes links. Google uses links...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3078,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/08\/13\/planned_obsoles.html","url_meta":{"origin":38822,"position":5},"title":"Planned obsolescence","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 13-Aug-02 6:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"The new XHTML standards from W3C indicate that, over time, backwards compatability to HTML from browsers will not be required. In other words, all those old web pages you have,...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38832,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38822\/revisions\/38832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}