How We Handle Links
The policies and practices of Tactical Notebook
Like its ink-and-paper namesake, the Tactical Notebook presents history in a form that, while not entirely raw, is as free from processing as I can make it. In keeping with this philosophy, many of the articles contain links to other sites. (In some instances, these links provide access to the sources used in the creation of an article. In others, they preserve our pieces from distracting digressions.)
In doing this, I am fully aware of two dangers. The first of these consists of dodgy websites that, at best, will waste your time. The second comes from the likelihood that any given webpage, however splendid it might be, will one day fall off the edge of the earth. (The dreaded “404” is the memento mori of the Information Age.)
With this in mind, I have adopted a policy of limiting links to websites of “name brand” organizations and websites that I manage myself. In doing the first of these things I am not necessarily endorsing the institution in question.1 In doing the second, I am ensuring that, should something untoward happen to sites I rely upon, I will learn about it quickly.
Of the webpages that I manage, one, the Military Learning Library, is located on Nabble. (This site, which allows me to “hang” PDF files of modest size, provides a home for such source documents as the German language original of The New Tank Tactics.) All of the rest, such as Radio PME (History) and the Companion to On Artillery, reside on Blogger. (Blogger also hosts the Military Learning Gateway, which provides links to all of my webpages.)
If, for whatever reason, the measures herein described fail, and you find yourself faced with a dead link or, what is worse, a connection to a maleficent website, please let me know.2 The best way to do this is make use of the comments section appended to the article where you found the offending link.
Note: I found the painting that decorates this page on the website of the Library of Congress. (The pun is, indeed, intentional.)
If you wish to hear the mournful tale of how Wikipedia lost what was, at one time, my ardent devotion, bring a bottle of Chilean Malbec to the Old Headquarters Building and I will wax rhapsodic.
Please note that, for the purposes of this piece, “maleficent” does not mean “something with which you disagree.” Rather, it refers to websites that contain malware, false promises of free PDFs, and the like.