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There are quite a few posts which link to some paper at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ rather than directly at https://arxiv.org/ The front for arXiv at UC Davis seems to be down for some time. (I have noticed this on March 28.)

You can find some such posts using search for url:"*front.math.ucdavis.edu*". Or you can look at such posts which were recently bumped.

When there are dead links in posts, I'd consider useful to replace them with working link - at least if the post has been already bumped for some other reason. (For example, I guess there are many broken links to springerlink.)

However here the circumstances seem to be somewhat different:

  • It seems plausible that front.math.ucdavis.edu will be operation again - in such cases no editing is needed.
  • Even if the link is not working, it contains arXiv identifier - people who have at least some experience with arXiv will be able to deduce the arXiv link.
  • And many people post not only link but also some other information (at least the authors and the title), which can help a lot in locating the paper.

Does somebody know what are the plans with front.math.ucdavis.edu - will it be working again in the future? And, depending on that, what is a reasonable course of action with posts which contain links to this domain.

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    $\begingroup$ It is probably too soon to start worrying about such links. (I assume that this will start working again eventually - so far it wasn't down for a very long time.) But when I have checked what else can be edited in some posts that were recently bumped I noticed such links - so it seemed reasonable to ask about this. $\endgroup$ Apr 18, 2020 at 7:58
  • $\begingroup$ Would the 'feature-request' tag be useful here? $\endgroup$
    – YCor
    Apr 19, 2020 at 10:20
  • $\begingroup$ @YCor Maybe if there's a new post requesting an automated replacement of the links. (Let us consider this one just as a question whether some action should be taken or not.) $\endgroup$ Apr 19, 2020 at 11:03
  • $\begingroup$ Posts where a link to front.math.ucdavis.edu or front.math.ucdavis.edu/search was removed/changed at some point. $\endgroup$ Apr 27, 2020 at 7:13
  • $\begingroup$ I have notice an edit in 2017 with the edit summary "corrected broken link (this arxiv's mirror is not in operation for several weeks)". So this is not the first time there is a similar problem. $\endgroup$ Apr 27, 2020 at 7:14
  • $\begingroup$ Does anyone know what happened to the front? I find it impossible to use the usual arXiv search engine, so I am very disturbed by its absence. $\endgroup$ Apr 28, 2020 at 3:55
  • $\begingroup$ The title is driving me crazy in the HNQ bar. Can we remove the extra "links to"? $\endgroup$
    – LSpice
    Apr 28, 2020 at 5:01
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    $\begingroup$ Sorry about that @LSpice. In fact, I didn't notice notice until you explicitly pointed it out. $\endgroup$ Apr 28, 2020 at 5:02
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    $\begingroup$ I recently updated mathoverflow.net/a/132018/16302. It contained four links starting with http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ (and a search link, which I'll ignore here). For two of these, a simple search-and-replace works, using the replacement https://arxiv.org/abs/. But for the other two I needed to use https://arxiv.org/abs/math/ and remove a .5 from the final part of the url. I do not know why this is. $\endgroup$
    – jeq
    Apr 30, 2020 at 2:42

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If it's been down for a few weeks it's too early (as you say) but a good idea to mention it now.

Your query points to about 600 answers, this is a lot, so the hope, if it's once judged time to make a change, to do it in an automatized way (which can be done only by moderators, I guess). Maybe some preparatory work should be done prior to detect what is the right script to run (list the multiples ways how the links are formatted, etc).

If such an action is performed, I'd support to take the opportunity to automatically replace every arxiv pdf link ("arxiv.org/pdf/9999.99999.pdf") with the link to abstract ("arxiv.org/abs/9999.99999").

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    $\begingroup$ As someone who manually chases down such links, I heartily second that suggestion. (I'd also like to fix all the links that point to "this" or "here" or "a paper", but that's less easily automated ….) $\endgroup$
    – LSpice
    Apr 19, 2020 at 4:05
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    $\begingroup$ Regarding the direct links to the arXiv pdfs, and generic "here" references, I heartily agree. $\endgroup$
    – David Roberts Mod
    Apr 19, 2020 at 9:47
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    $\begingroup$ I think automatized edits which don't bump posts to the front page can be done only by SE employees, and not by moderators. -- Anyway, for any such mass edits, I think this is the best way to go. $\endgroup$
    – Stefan Kohl Mod
    Apr 19, 2020 at 15:32
  • $\begingroup$ Perhaps the automated transformation would be less straightforward for links not to articles but to searches, authors, categories, etc. But probably there isn't too many of them here are a few examples. $\endgroup$ Apr 21, 2020 at 8:30

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