[fitsbits] REFERENC keyword, etc.

[Mark Taylor]

On Wed, 12 Aug 2015, Joe Hourcle wrote:

> If you think my example is too impractical, write a DOI on a sheet of paper,
> and take it around to the scientists in your group, and ask them if they know
> what to do with it.

Shove it into google, obviously!

Works for me: the first result when I google your original example
doi:10.7717/peerj-cs.1 takes me to (at least a version of) the
relevant paper, at https://peerj.com/articles/cs-1/.
Though I admit I'm not an actual scientist, I share with them a
general ignorance about exactly how DOIs are supposed to work :-].

If you circulate a URL, then if the relevant server disappears
or restructures its content, the link becomes useless or requires
significant detective work to make sense of.  If you circulate
a probably-unique-string-of-characters-associated-with-the-content
(such as a DOI), it can probably be used in google, or whatever
search technology replaces it in the forseeable future, as-is.
I am prepared to believe that this is not how the architects of
DOI intended it to be used, but from a pragmatic point of view,
it works pretty well.

--
Mark Taylor   Astronomical Programmer   Physics, Bristol University, UK
m.b.taylor at bris.ac.uk +44-117-9288776  http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/