Sometimes you want to copy symlink, sometimes you want to 'dereference' symlink.
man cp:
-L, --dereference
always follow symbolic links in SOURCE
...
-P, --no-dereference
never follow symbolic links in SOURCE
man rsync:
--links, -l copy symlinks as symlinks
--copy-links, -L transform symlink into referent file/dir
Midnight commander has the 'follow links' option.
You see the difference?
In programming, sometimes it's enough to copy only a pointer to object, sometimes an object itself is to be copied.
Pure C and C++ programmers also use the 'dereference' term, meaning: get an object by pointer.
Some time ago (before 24-Mar-2025) there was Disqus JS script for comments. I dropped it --- it was so motley, distracting, animated, with too much ads. I never liked it. Also, comments din't appeared correctly (Disqus was buggy). Also, my blog is too chamberlike --- not many people write comments here. So I decided to switch to the model I once had at least in 2020 --- send me your comments by email (don't forget to include URL to this blog post) and I will copy&paste it here manually.
Let's party like it's ~1993-1996, in this ultimate, radical and uncompromisingly primitive pre-web1.0-style blog and website. This website is best viewed under lynx/links/elinks/w3m.