When I worked at Boston.com, one time I got an email forwarded to me from someone from boston.com's editorial side about the Globe proposing a change to their style guide suggesting that the "www." be stripped from all web addresses. The boston.com staff wanted to know if the suggestion would trip up the piece of the CMS that automatically hyperlinks things that look like URLs. (and no, I don't know why it failed in last weeks post) I responded that in most cases it should work, but it should probably be phrased in terms of "if both names leads to an identical web site, then the 'www.' should be removed" and pointed out examples like globe.com vs. www.globe.com as an example of how stripping the "www." could ruin a URL. (being able to get a dig in against their IT department was just a welcome side effect.)

I don't know if they changed their style guide for URLs, or even if they have one now. I just find it funny that the URL they published had the "www." still attached, and that my implication that URLs should to be checked isn't done.

I don't even think I've ever seen any corrections over incorrect URLs. If they published a mistaken date, they'd publish a correction (Because of a production error, a New Philharmonia Orchestra concert date was listed incorrectly in Thursday's Sidekick. The orchestra does not play on April 3; it performs today and on April 5 and 6.) When they publish an incorrect address, they will publish a correction. (Because of a reporting error, the obituary yesterday of Dr. Louis Selverstone, who practiced at Mount Auburn Hospital for 35 years, gave a wrong location for Park Avenue Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. It is in Arlington, Mass.) I can't find an example of it now, but if they had published the wrong name of a journal an article was published in (for example: New England Journal of Medicine vs. American Journal of Medicine) I think they would publish a correction. In my mind, publishing a wrong URL is like publishing the incorrect name for a publication.

I know that most sites on the Internet aren't the research equivalent of the New England Journal of Medicine, but if a source is important enough to name, it is important enough to name correctly. Whoops, I just noticed that they "fixed" the online version by just taking out the bad URL entirely. I guess it wasn't an important enough source to name in the article anyway.