Playing by the rules
A long time ago, when the US first went to a 55 mile an hour speed limit, truck drivers howled in protest. "Ok," they said. "You want 55 miles an hour on the freeways? You get 55 miles an hour." And they obeyed the rules. Lo and behold, commerce dropped dead for all intents and purposes. Shipments were late, ruined, and more. The police (in most areas, at least) informally decided to drop enforcement of the law. And eventually, the speed limit increased.
So, netizens, I am going to try the same strategy. You want to maintain control of who links to what where? OK. You got it. And subtly, content will be lost, the chance to comment on sites will be lost, and a chunk of our intellectual freedom will be gone forever. And just as we cannot reconstruct what Anna Ahkmatova's editor deleted, we cannot reconstruct what would have happened if the laws allowed it.
But more than this, I want Disappearing Rain to be a snapshot of what the web is/was like in the turn of the millenium. Therefore, I wrote to each site that I linked to, explaining my project. Many people were enthusiastic and quite willing to have their sites linked. Others were not: