5 ms·

I assume you are no t familiar with MLA formatting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_MLA_Style_Manual http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_MLA_Style_Manual. It is

I assume you are no t familiar with MLA formatting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_MLA_Style_Manual http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_MLA_Style_Manual. It is a style format for written works (newspapers, academic papers, books etc). This is apparently an accepted form of citing a tweet in an official document. A link does not do anything, as it can be deleted.

Firehed 14y ago
Anyone looking to actually verify the source (this is at least partially why they're cited, right?) is going to have difficulty locating the original tweet without the permalink. The original tweet, along with the link, can be deleted - but that's true for any web resource. Ultimately, I wonder why tweets are cited any differently than any other web resource. I'd find the following more useful: https://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/292799867372310529 than MLA's recommended tweet style: news.yc popular (newsycombinator). "How do I cite a tweet? http://j.mp/ygeHyP" 19 Jan 2013, 5:05 p.m. Tweet. I guess it's handy to have the full body of the tweet right in the citation, but that would be true for any short quote from any resource - both on and offline.
- lsc 14y ago
  I think the assumption is that the tweets will go away. Look at the twitter search; I mean, they can't seem to search tweets more than a few days/weeks old. Clearly twitter does not place a high priority on keeping historical data.
  - spullara 14y ago
    Every public, non-deleted tweet is easily available via the API or a URL. The search index is time limited.
  - Firehed 14y ago
    They don't prioritize finding historical data, which is why the permalink URL is all the more important. There are (or at least were) third-party services dedicated solely to finding older Twitter data. Again, this is no different than any web resource. We even have an HTTP header specifically to indicate content has been deleted.
0x0 14y ago
I am not, but if the purpose of a reference is to allow others to verify and find the original source, using anything but the original link is ridiculous. I added the JSON link to prove the point that you can get exact dates/times for a tweet (including info about the currently active timezone for the author's account)
- wahnfrieden 14y ago
  If you look at many links cited 6-8+ years ago, they're dead. It's not a great long-term solution at all.
1123581321 14y ago
A link is still valuable because it shows where the writer of the publication accessed the information. Yes, it might be deleted, but it might be possible to retrieve a copy of what was at that URL, or it might be discovered someone keeps a record of an alternate location of the content that was at that URL, or at least the revieer can verify that a valid-looking URL as cited if no other evidence can be found. A citation is supposed to supply a lot of information to make research easier. For this reason (and others) I vastly prefer the APA's standard which would certainly require the URL, and would put the tweet text in as the title unambiguously as Twitter's site is structured that way. Thankfully the APA is still the gold standard so hopefully not many will be citing tweets in the MLA's useless way.

Firehed 14y ago

Anyone looking to actually verify the source (this is at least partially why they're cited, right?) is going to have difficulty locating the original tweet without the permalink. The original tweet, along with the link, can be deleted - but that's true for any web resource. Ultimately, I wonder why tweets are cited any differently than any other web resource. I'd find the following more useful: https://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/292799867372310529 than MLA's recommended tweet style: news.yc popular (newsycombinator). "How do I cite a tweet? http://j.mp/ygeHyP" 19 Jan 2013, 5:05 p.m. Tweet. I guess it's handy to have the full body of the tweet right in the citation, but that would be true for any short quote from any resource - both on and offline.

lsc 14y ago
I think the assumption is that the tweets will go away. Look at the twitter search; I mean, they can't seem to search tweets more than a few days/weeks old. Clearly twitter does not place a high priority on keeping historical data.
- spullara 14y ago
  Every public, non-deleted tweet is easily available via the API or a URL. The search index is time limited.
- Firehed 14y ago
  They don't prioritize finding historical data, which is why the permalink URL is all the more important. There are (or at least were) third-party services dedicated solely to finding older Twitter data. Again, this is no different than any web resource. We even have an HTTP header specifically to indicate content has been deleted.

0x0 14y ago

I am not, but if the purpose of a reference is to allow others to verify and find the original source, using anything but the original link is ridiculous. I added the JSON link to prove the point that you can get exact dates/times for a tweet (including info about the currently active timezone for the author's account)

wahnfrieden 14y ago
If you look at many links cited 6-8+ years ago, they're dead. It's not a great long-term solution at all.

1123581321 14y ago

A link is still valuable because it shows where the writer of the publication accessed the information. Yes, it might be deleted, but it might be possible to retrieve a copy of what was at that URL, or it might be discovered someone keeps a record of an alternate location of the content that was at that URL, or at least the revieer can verify that a valid-looking URL as cited if no other evidence can be found. A citation is supposed to supply a lot of information to make research easier. For this reason (and others) I vastly prefer the APA's standard which would certainly require the URL, and would put the tweet text in as the title unambiguously as Twitter's site is structured that way. Thankfully the APA is still the gold standard so hopefully not many will be citing tweets in the MLA's useless way.