Talk:2025 United States government online resource removals

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Title

There is no particular name for this event in the sources. I called it "Deletion of United States government data" because the sources describe this event as if nothing like this has happened in the United States in the past. Bluerasberry (talk) 01:47, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds about right. Bearian (talk) 23:37, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disaster

I'm on a family leave from academia/education. I can't imagine the horror. Bearian (talk) 23:37, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clearinghouse with useful information

I added a line about the Data Rescue Project in the Reactions section, but wanted to note it here as well, since it lists many other organizations that might be added to that section. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:47, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Talk:Department of Government Efficiency § DOGE and government website/data removals

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Department of Government Efficiency § DOGE and government website/data removals. Anne drew (talk · contribs) 00:18, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generalize beyond current events in the United States?

The current removal of online resources by the US government is notable, but this will surely become a recurring issue during other transitions of administrations in the US and abroad. Perhaps there is potential for an index of pages documenting the removal of online materials during such transitions, with a page for each transition in each country, documenting what was removed, when it was removed, if anything was put up in its place, and, if such a thing exists, a link to an alternative source where the resource has been backed up, such as on the Internet Archive or the Source Cooperative. DiscoStuDoesntAdvertize (talk) 15:58, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DiscoStuDoesntAdvertize: There could be, but this is the first biggest time this happened and is the most documented.

The End of Term Web Archive is the best public dataset for comparing data between US presidential transitions, and I do not think there is identified research on data removal except for this first time. There is not an equivalent project for other countries, and without a dataset like this, it would be challenging to discuss data removals.

As always with Wikipedia, good article ideas start with identifying good sources. Seek out sources and when you find good ones, share them here to coordinate planning on how to talk about this general concept for different time periods in different countries. I would be surprised if anything thorough exists. Bluerasberry (talk) 17:02, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to Archived Copies of Websites and Datasets

I think it would be relevant and useful to identify where archived copies of websites and datasets that have been taken down are currently located, and I would like to add this information to the article.

It is my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that there should not be outgoing links in the body of Wikipedia articles. Rather, they should be in the notes and external links section.

Because of that, what I would like to do is add a column for the Datasets table (and create a similar table for websites) that identifies if there is a backup of the website or dataset, and who is hosting it. The host name would have a citation, and the citation would then link out to the backup.

Does that seem like it aligns with Wikipedia guidelines? DiscoStuDoesntAdvertize (talk) 18:38, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DiscoStuDoesntAdvertize: Probably Wikipedia is not the place for this. Check the rules for Wikipedia:External links. A typical number of external links is 1, and rarely 3. The Wikipedia:Further reading section is usually for comprehensive sources or other tertiary sources, like a textbook or documentary.

But, why not just see what you find, bring it here, and then we talk it through. To start, can you find ~3 sources of the sort you are imagining? Bluerasberry (talk) 22:17, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]