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Working Mode: link anchor permanence requests
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Helps with #134.
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annevk authored and foolip committed Jul 1, 2020
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Expand Up @@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ EXAMPLE: Although the concept of "structured cloning" has been replaced by struc

Consumers who need to reference exactly what a Living Standard said at a given point in time, for example to document what they implemented from or to explain the history of the web platform, can use the commit snapshots functionality. Each Living Standard has a "Snapshot as of this commit" link that gives a frozen copy for such historical reference. The WHATWG will keep these snapshots available at their published URLs permanently. However, other standards organizations are discouraged from referencing these snapshots, as they generally contain contain known issues that have been fixed in the Living Standard, and can mislead implementers and web developers.

For cases where another standards organization wishes to ensure an anchor is permanently available in the canonical Living Standard, they may file a new issue requesting a permanent anchor and detailing the anchor(s) they would like preserved. The editor can then discuss this request with the requestor; for example, if the editor was planning on making changes in the near future, maybe they would advise the requestor to hold off on linking to that anchor until the changes go through.
For cases where another standards organization wishes to ensure an anchor is permanently available in the canonical Living Standard, they may file a new issue requesting a permanent anchor and detailing the anchor(s) they would like preserved. See all [current and past requests for anchor permanence](https://github.com/search?q=org%3Awhatwg+label%3A%22anchor+permanence%22). The editor can then discuss this request with the requestor; for example, if the editor was planning on making changes in the near future, maybe they would advise the requestor to hold off on linking to that anchor until the changes go through.

After discussion concludes, such requested anchors get promoted to be permanent. This means that it becomes a matter of WHATWG Policy to never break them without the requestor's assent. (This is enforced via technical means in the specification tooling.) If an editor has a strong reason for breaking the anchor in the future, they should reach out on the original issue thread to the requestor to discuss how to proceed. This may result in breaking the anchor with the requestor's assent, e.g., because the requestor is prepared to update their referring standard. Otherwise the anchor will have to be maintained in the standard in some manner.

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