Re: broken link

[Bob Proulx]

Bruno Haible wrote:
> Jeff Schwab wrote:
> > The GNU head image link is broken on the following page:  
> > http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/
> > The link currently points to: http://www.gnu.org/graphics/agnuhead.html
> > It probably should point to: http://www.gnu.org/graphics/gnu-head-sm.jpg
> 
> I think it is intentional. If the link were to point to .../gnu-head-sm.jpg,
> the user who clicks on it would only see the image that he has just seen.
> The way it currently is, he gets a page with the story about this image
> and alternate formats.

Correct.  It is a link to the information about the image.  This page
hasn't been updated to the currently in vogue template and is still
using a previously in vogue template. :-) It is part of the style and
layout of the page.  There isn't any absolutely correct answer and the
result is a matter of design taste.

However technically a "broken link" would be one that when followed
returns a "404 Page Not Found" error.  Since that link resolves and
returns a "200 Success" then by definition it can't be broken.  It
might be misdirected however.  But in this case it is intended
behavior.

The actual html source is:

  <A HREF="/graphics/agnuhead.html">
    <IMG SRC="/graphics/gnu-head-sm.jpg" ALT=" [image of the Head of a GNU] "
         WIDTH="129" HEIGHT="122">
  </A>

There we can see that the image is the content of the anchor tag.
Text anchor links are usually underlined and image anchor links are
usually outlined.  The underlined text or outlined image gives the
user feedback that it is a link and can be selected.  When selected it
takes the user to the referenced URL supplied by the document author.
It wouldn't make any sense to have the image link to itself.  In that
case it wouldn't be necessary to be a link at all and would just be a
plain image.

But the philosophy of the web is to link knowledge together and so
people often link as much as possible.  (Some Wikipedia pages stand
out as having an extreme amount of hyperlinking, sometimes to the
point of distraction.)  Links can provide interesting peripheral
information which is sometimes only loosely related to the currently
viewed page.

> Thank you for reporting it anyway.

Yes, thank you for reporting it.

Bob