https://foreverwiki.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Content_drift 2026-09-24T10:01:12Z Revision history for this page on the wiki MediaWiki 1.43.1 https://foreverwiki.org/index.php?title=Content_drift&diff=28&oldid=prev 2026-09-24T05:38:02Z

<p>Content pass: encyclopedic seed/expansion</p> <p><b>New page</b></p><div>&#039;&#039;&#039;Content drift&#039;&#039;&#039; occurs when a URL continues to resolve but the meaning of the page changes—through silent edits, title reuse, or wholesale replacement—so that a citation no longer supports the claim it once did. Together with [[Link rot]], it is often discussed under [[Reference rot]].<br /> <br /> ==Why it matters==<br /> Footnotes that point only to a live URL can become misleading years later even if the link is &quot;green.&quot; Scholars and encyclopedias therefore record access dates and archive URLs, treating a dated [[Wayback Machine]] capture as closer to a [[Primary source]] for what was claimed at the time.<br /> <br /> ==See also==<br /> * [[Reference rot]]<br /> * [[Link rot]]<br /> * [[Web archiving]]<br /> <br /> ==Sources==<br /> * Klein, Nelson, and related research on reference rot in scholarly communication (general citation).<br /> * Library guidance on citing dynamic web resources.<br /> <br /> [[Category:Web archiving]]<br /> [[Category:Concepts]]<br /> [[Category:Sources]]</div>

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