Link Horror: The Thomas Crampton Affair
May 10, 2009
Link loss is not movie material. Careless “removal” of a server or its content can cause some pain. You can read about the personal annoyance (anguish maybe”?) expressed by journalist Thomas Crampton. His stories written for a fee have disappeared. The details are here. There is another angle that is not just annoying, it is expensive to rectify. Wikipedia linked to a Web site called IHT.com, the online presence of the International Herald Tribune, or was was the Web site. You can read about that issue here. Now the Wikipedia links are dead and the fix is going to require lots of volunteers or a script that can make the problem go away. Either way, this is an example of how organization’s think about what’s good for themselves or what those organizations perceive is the “right” approach and the unexpected consequences of the decision. I see this type of uninformed decision making too frequently. The ability to look at an issue from an “overflight” position is seen as silly, too time consuming, or not part of the management process. I think the Thomas Crampton Affair might make a compelling video.
Stephen Arnold, May 10, 2009
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2 Responses to “Link Horror: The Thomas Crampton Affair”
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Stephen: Thanks for helping bring this to your audience. I am hoping that if enough people speak about it, the NY Times will rectify the situation. What happened to me and my former IHT colleagues is, however, all too common I have found in the comments. Many publications have done it before. So silly. Would they ever burn their physical publication archives?
Tom
Thomas Crampton,
No problem. Tough spot. In checking backlinks to this story, I don’t find many other Web logs picking it up. Too bad.
Stephen Arnold, May 10, 2009