General question: when posting links, should I default to Internet Archive links, on the assumption that the original link will go away? Or not?

I've noticed that this is sometimes done, particularly on Wikipedia. I don't know if this is Wikipedia policy.

Also, can one do footnotes in SE postings? If so, how?

Context: stackoverflow.com/a/70724819/350713

See specifically the para which starts:

> In case anyone is wondering...

@FaheemMitha My personal view is to use a link to the original document. If a link goes dead, and if it's important, someone will (hopefully) complain and an archived page can be linked instead. Note that the Internet Archive is a web site just like any other and that it too is subject to downtimes and eventual decommission. It is furthermore much much slower than most other web sites out there.

@Kusalananda The IA isn't immortal, agreed. That's a good point.

Of course, nothing is immortal, so it's probably redundant to say.

@Kusalananda Bear in mind that an IA archive may not exist. Apparently it didn't exist for the links in question, though IA helpfully immediately generated the archives for me. "Archiving on Demand". I didn't realise they did that.

@FaheemMitha I think that my point that the archive is likely to be much slower than the original site would be is by itself a reason not to use the archive "preemptively".

@Kusalananda Speed doesn't seem like an overriding concern to me. Isn't it better to get the document slowly than not get it at all?

@FaheemMitha Ah, but does everyone think and feel like you? ;-)

Personally, when I end up on the archive, I subcounciously also think "this info must be outdated (or else I would not have been directed here)".

If the site is slow, I probably wander off elsewere to look for the information.

: (

@αғsнιη same type of questions (no efforts show up in the question) with awk tags gets downvotes but some other questions gets up votes 🤕

@αғsнιη I act on questions according to how I feel about the question. If it's a basic text-processing question that would be easy to solve by following any number of similar examples on U&L, then I might down-vote or just move on. If it's a novel and interesting problem that makes me think, I might not care that the question does not show any prior effort, up-vote it and solve it. Showing prior effort is not the only criteria for a good question.

And I really enjoy working with jq, so I tend to enjoy solving JSON-related questions with it.

So for me, a good question is one that is easy to understand and fun to solve. If it shows prior effort, then that's a plus.

In the end, what questions get up-votes and what questions get down-votes largely depends on what people look at them.

What people look at a question depend on the formulation of the title and the tagging, mostly.

I'm honestly more concerned about the quality of answers than about the quality of questions.

If anyone is able to give a really good answer to any of the mundane "combine two files by joining on some column with awk" questions, then that answer and question deserves all the up-votes.

But it's difficult to do that and be noticed in the flood of similar questions.

@Kusalananda I have no idea what people think. And they certainly don't all think like me. That would be a statistical impossibility.

@FaheemMitha :-) Sorry, I was being pokey. Yes, of course some people don't care about the speed.

Are you still lawn dominating your neighbors Jeff?

I'm lucky -- there aren't many retired families nearby that have all day to perfect their lawn. I have fewer dandelions than some, but still some clover and crabgrass. Mower needs a little maintenance, too -- the blade release is getting worn and won't let go when it should. Always something :)

Dang that sounds dangerous. Walk behind or riding?

Do you use a weed and feed?

It's a small riding mower, and yes it's a little dangerous. Sometimes lowering the rpms does the trick, otherwise just turn it off. Mainly annoying when I'm trying to empty the hopper and it's still blowing grass and leaves in my face :)

I do sometimes remember to put down a ween n feed, and kick myself every time, because then the grass grows and I have to cut it like every 3 hours

hah

I was doing a steady 4 applications a year at my last house and after about 2 years it started noticeably cutting back the crab grass

I've heard that if you spray clover with a little baby shampoo mixed with water before you put your weed killer down that helps because the clover has an oily surface or something that the baby shampoo will break and allow the weed killer to be absorbed

Are you retired?!?! :)

I guess spraying shampoo on clover is safer than what my neighbor did; he had a propane flame sprayer and got too close to his dry bushes and wooden mulch. Neighbor Jeff came running with a fire extinguisher; neighbor #2 called 911. :)

I just got a weird email from an address in the domain netcraft.com.

The message starts with:

Does anyone know what this might be about? I'm inclined to just ignore it as usual.

@FaheemMitha Are you running an email server?

@Kusalananda Only locally. Exim.

@FaheemMitha Just check the mail log to make sure it looks normal, then ignore the message if there's no strange email activity.

@Kusalananda I'm not sure I could recognise strange email activity if I saw it. But it's just my email messages going out, and messages (mostly spam) coming in.

@FaheemMitha If it's just your messages going out, and you see nothing else strange about them (messages sent from your adress that you can't remember seeing), then you can ignore the message from netcraft. That message sounds strange to start with (it assumes you own the domain).

@Kusalananda Strange as in the messages being sent out don't have my name on them?

It all looks normal, as far I can tell.

@Kusalananda I do own the email domain in my email address. It's a custom email address.

It's certainly possible (even likely) that messages are being sent with spoofed email addresses from that domain.

@FaheemMitha If it looks normal, I would not worry. If the message from netcraft contains an example, then look into it. If not, ignore.

I remember when the internet was a nice quiet place. I miss those days.

@FaheemMitha As long as they're not sent via your email server.