At 18:02 02/12/2002, you wrote:
> I leave it to Mark, Chris and the experts
>to pick the optimal technical solution. (Chris?)
It isn't just a technical issue.
If you follow Mark's solution you end up with the risk of people citing
papers that don't contain the information they cite anymore. This is
particularly likely when the matter being discussed is controversial. A
citation strictly refers to a manifestation/version not the generic paper.
If the person making the citation wishes to change the citation to a later
version then that is *their* right. The link is *their* link, not the
target's. If you have 'published' something then it is in the public domain
and you must expect people to cite it (and that version).
I agree that archive items should persist and, therefore, the references to
them. The relationship between the versions should be issue to click
through too.
Regards the 'user' query, they need to be told not to submit so many
versions i.e. *think* carefully before submission! This is a matter of
policy and governs the degree of 'resistance' there is to making
submissions. There needs to be some otherwise the quality level drop.
A/
>Stevan Harnad
>
>On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Mark Doyle wrote:
>
> > Greetings,
> >
> > On Tuesday, November 26, 2002, at 08:27 PM, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> >
> > > Now it is conceivable that the eprints architecture can be slightly
> > > modified, so that the old, suppressed URL for the deleted paper
> > > automatically redirects to the new draft if someone tries to access
> > > the old one. That I have to let Chris reply about. Here I have merely
> > > explained the rationale for not having designed the archive so a paper
> > > could be deposited, and then modified willy-nilly under the same URL.
> > > For that would not have been an archive at all, and user complaints,
> > > about trying to use and cite a moving target, would have far
> > > out-numbered
> > > depositor complaints about what to do with after-thoughts and
> > > successive
> > > drafts.
> >
> > Well, that is one way to look at it. On the other hand, arXiv.org uses
> > version numbers and the persistent name/id and URL (say hep-th/0210311
> > and http://arXiv.org/abs/hep-th/0210311) always points to the latest
> > version
> > with links to the earlier versions.
> >
> > I believe you are advocating a poor design choice here. One cannot
> > overemphasize
> > the importance of human-friendly persistent names that are easily
> > converted
> > to URL's for linking and quick location. Patching the system to
> > redirect to the
> > latest linked version is a hack. Is one actually able to download
> > the earlier version (which is what was cited)? Generally, a better
> > approach
> > is to give a good persistent name to a "work" and not a single
> > manifestation
> > of that work (whether it be a particular format or a particular
> > version) and
> > then give a reader a single point of entry into the system that can be
> > bookmarked
> > or cited reliably which gives a choice of what to download. Cutting off
> > access
> > to an earlier, citeable version is a mistake. Archives should not
> > delete items
> > or make them hard to access - rather they should show items in context
> > and give easy access to an item's history and versioning with a single
> > identifier for the work taken as a whole.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Mark
> >
> > Mark Doyle
> > Manager, Product Development
> > The American Physical Society
> >
Received on Mon Dec 02 2002 - 19:08:15 GMT