Editing Help talk:Citation Style 1 (section)

== archive-url links ==

I just found a discussion I had with [[user:Snowman304|Snowman304]] in September 2024, I wanted to post here, because my concerns weren't solved or put at ease by him. His responses (and a resulting concern) are hidden behind <!->.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Snowman304#c-MenkinAlRire-20240917160000-Snowman304-20240917141900 

Hi. Your bot archived links on [[Helen Levitt]]. I don't see the advantage of the redundancy, when the web pages are fresh or obviously made to stay, like the MoMA pages. The reference just looks awful and unnecessarily technical. There is a link that works fine, the redundant archive-url is just irritating and disturbing. I certainly see the purpose, but the bot produces -beside the already described redundancies- also the illusion of good maintenance. I found several links (in this lemma) the bot added an archive-url to that were already dead or just a search box (instead of a find).

Would you be at least able to make the archive-urls invisible as long as the original urls are live? This would be a good compromise, I think. (The wording "rescued" is pretentious anyway, if the link was visited the day before) [[User:MenkinAlRire|MenkinAlRire]] 13:56, 17 September 2024 (UTC) 
<!--:Hi there!
:It's not my bot, so I don't have control over its "pretentious" verbiage.
:Link rot happens all the time. There's even a whole page about it ([[WP:LINKROT]]). The archive-url is a ''feature'', not a bug. You want people to be able to look at the references in 5, 10, 15 years from now, even if MoMA moves the pages or the New York Times puts the article behind a paywall. That's why, for example, the cited journal articles have DOIs. 
:Is it a perfect system? Of course not. There are a few tweaks I'll have to make to what it output, e.g., the 404 errors it archived. But it's a lot better than leaving link rot to chance. [[User:Snowman304|'''Snowman304''']]'''&#124;'''[[User talk:Snowman304|'''talk''']] 14:19, 17 September 2024 (UTC)-->
:<i>[some original discussion commented out...]</i> {{small|note injected by <i>&mdash;&nbsp;[[User:JohnFromPinckney|JohnFromPinckney]] ([[User talk:JohnFromPinckney|talk]] / [[Special:Contributions/JohnFromPinckney|edits]])</i> 06:43, 13 February 2026 (UTC)}}
::My point was, if there wasn't a way to design it more discreet. It makes no sense to show an archive-url as long as the original link works. As a reader I really don't want to see a technicality, it's unnerving to read and try to understand why there has to be two or even three or four links for one reference, especially when they are unchecked. 
::It seems to me, that technical principles, the bureaucratic aspect rules over the actual experience to read and work with WP. The design is everything else but elegant. This is certainly true for all the formulas urls are archived with, they usually result in redundancies that make no sense and hurt the eye (and the brain). It's not a bug, but it looks like one, and in the cases I meant it isn't a feature either. I would expect the NYT and the MoMA as well would announce such a move beforehand. But I  expect too, that it's (more) complicated, and the vast WP has to use all bots it can get. [[User:MenkinAlRire|MenkinAlRire]] 16:00, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
<!--:::Well, that's all well beyond my pay grade (as a volunteer). Go take it up on [[Help talk:Citation Style 1]] or something-->
::<i>[more original discussion commented out...]</i> {{small|note injected by <i>&mdash;&nbsp;[[User:JohnFromPinckney|JohnFromPinckney]] ([[User talk:JohnFromPinckney|talk]] / [[Special:Contributions/JohnFromPinckney|edits]])</i> 06:43, 13 February 2026 (UTC)}}
:::Well, here are some good examples of not-much-sense. On Helen Levitt again the short form s2cid=192186702 was added. When you follow the link, there is nothing really concerning Levitt but another link which leads to the article (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/649790 I don't know if there is a template for it) Why not link the article directly? 
:::In another ref there are both doi and jstor given, but their links are identical, so it makes no sense. Anothertime there is a doi, just to be followed by "doi-broken". Really, noone wants to read that stuff, it belongs in the kitchen, not on the diner table. <!--WP will decline in popularity very fast, when the bureaucracy and the 'expertisation' of the articles grow. Although the articles are steadily getting better, the readability is declining. (I am myself a copy editor and I am pro-detail, and for me it gets already to much, the apparatus gets to big and complicated).-->
[[User:MenkinAlRire|MenkinAlRire]] 16:02, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
:The web itself is a mess. There is no way to know if a "live" link is actually live or a soft-404 (extremely common). We make the archive URL available for readers who are having trouble accessing the supposed live link for whatever reason (soft-404, geo-block, temp outage etc). Giving readers both options is better than hiding the archive URL in the source code where they have to hunt for it. It might seem "technical" but that is how the web is. -- [[User:GreenC|<span style="color: #006A4E;">'''Green'''</span>]][[User talk:GreenC|<span style="color: #093;">'''C'''</span>]] <!--Template:Undated--><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|undated]] comment added 06:24, 31 January 2026 (UTC)</small>
:This is a mess. We shouldn't have to edit source code to see what you're talking about. <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">[[User:Pigsonthewing|Andy Mabbett]]</span> (<span class="nickname">Pigsonthewing</span>); [[User talk:Pigsonthewing|Talk to Andy]]; [[Special:Contributions/Pigsonthewing|Andy's edits]]</span> 15:47, 22 January 2026 (UTC)
:I agree with Andy that this way of quoting information is nonsensical. I thought you were replying to yourself before I looked more closely. I for one think preemptively adding an archive link (alongside url status live) is a good practice; links die (or get usurped or deviate so that they no longer support an assertion) all the time without anyone immediately realizing. An archive provided with the initial referencing even when the link is live provides a data point that this url definitely did used to say what it was cited as saying even if it no longer does, something that makes verification easier when a link dies (or especially when it's still the same website but now has less information present than it used to--without an archive someone may be more likely to assume that the page ''never'' supported the citation and remove the link). Having it always visible also makes sure anyone can see that the archive link exists even if the citation hasn't been directly marked dead yet. - [[User:Purplewowies|Purplewowies]] ([[User talk:Purplewowies|talk]]) 20:49, 25 January 2026 (UTC)