Cool URIs Don't Change¶
Berners-Lee, T. (1998). Cool URIs Don't Change.
Cited by¶
7 citations across 7 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Identifier Assignment
- The web's hard-won practice of permanent versus temporary resolution, of preserving downstream references through redirects, and of avoiding resolution chains transfers to library-system migrations and to versioned-record management; the database practice of stable keys decoupled from mutable attributes transfers to customer-record design, where its absence produces the duplicate records that wreck deduplication and history.
This sourceStates the web discipline of permanent versus temporary identifiers, preserving downstream references through redirects and avoiding resolution chains — the practice ported to library migrations and versioned-record management.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Berners-Lee argues for persistent identifiers independent of changeable attributes and a database mapping them to current files, but not redirects, chains or library and customer-record uses.
“When you change a URI on your server, you can never completely tell who will have links to the old URI.”
- The web's hard-won practice of permanent versus temporary resolution, of preserving downstream references through redirects, and of avoiding resolution chains transfers to library-system migrations and to versioned-record management; the database practice of stable keys decoupled from mutable attributes transfers to customer-record design, where its absence produces the duplicate records that wreck deduplication and history.
- Persistent Identifier
- The stable token is the DOI string, opaque and assigned once — crucially not a URL, because a URL encodes the article's current location and therefore breaks the moment the publisher migrates servers, which is exactly the link-rot failure the prime diagnoses as "used as if persistent when no resolver was maintained behind it."
This sourceArgues that good identifiers are designed for simplicity, stability, and manageability — as names not locations — so that citation does not break when a server moves.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Berners-Lee supports the idea that identifiers break when they embed changeable details such as server names, but he argues stable HTTP URIs are possible and never discusses DOIs.
“URIs change when there is some information in them which changes.”
- The stable token is the DOI string, opaque and assigned once — crucially not a URL, because a URL encodes the article's current location and therefore breaks the moment the publisher migrates servers, which is exactly the link-rot failure the prime diagnoses as "used as if persistent when no resolver was maintained behind it."
- Retired Term
- And in web and identifier systems, redirects, tombstones, and record-merger markers keep old identifiers resolvable even after the canonical form has changed.
This sourceArgues that identifiers should remain resolvable after content changes, motivating redirects and persistence rather than deletion of old URLs.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Argues old URIs should stay resolvable via a server-side mapping to current files; it does not mention redirects, tombstones or record-merger markers.
“What you need to do is to have the web server look up a persistent URI in an instant and return the file, wherever your current crazy file system has it stored away at the moment.”
- And in web and identifier systems, redirects, tombstones, and record-merger markers keep old identifiers resolvable even after the canonical form has changed.
Mechanisms¶
- Alias Redirect Table
- Its strength is that it is the antidote to link rot
This sourceExplains why stable URIs prevent dangling links when sites, files, names, and organizational structures change.
- Its strength is that it is the antidote to link rot
- Physical or Virtual Labeling System
- The labeling system's strength is convergence: it lets independent actors point at the same site without coordinating, which is why stable, opaque handles are worth protecting — the web's "Cool URIs don't change" maxim is the same principle applied to virtual sites.
This sourceExplains why persistent URIs should remain stable so independent links and applications continue to identify the same resource.
- The labeling system's strength is convergence: it lets independent actors point at the same site without coordinating, which is why stable, opaque handles are worth protecting — the web's "Cool URIs don't change" maxim is the same principle applied to virtual sites.
- Redirect and Tombstone Policy
- It embodies the principle that cool URIs don't change:
This sourceArgues that stable URIs should not change and recommends redirects or explanatory responses when resources move or disappear.
- It embodies the principle that cool URIs don't change:
- Successor Forwarding Record
Verification¶
Does it exist? Not checked yet. This entry carries no identifier to resolve. It was extracted from the citation as written in the article, normalized, and deduplicated against the rest of the registry.
Does it back the claim? Read against the text for 3 of 7 citations: 3 supported in part. Each verdict is shown under its citation below, with what in the work backs the sentence.
Support is checked per citation rather than per work — the same source can be cited soundly in one article and wrongly in another. Per-citation recording began recently, so a citation with no recorded check is a gap in the record rather than evidence it went unchecked.
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Links previously used in the corpus¶
Before the registry existed this work was also linked 1 other way.
Registry ID ref:95e63a599c9a · see in the full table