I am quite certain they do it out of spite.

I keep telling these people that I'm endlessly tired of their dead links. I tell them that I'm going to put their links in a little list of mine that won't be so tiresome. I tell them that their links will be "dead listed", as such, which is exactly what ought to happen to a dead link.

I tell them this, not to encourage them to write anything of any noteworthiness. I tell them this so that I can quit seeing their dead links cluttering up the active ones.

And what do they do?
They re-active the links I have already decided, after at least half a year of no new progress, are dead.

But, the frustration is in the fact that this new activation of the once-dead links will only be as temporary as their other activity was. It will be short-lived. It will fizzle as soon as it was sparked.

And so, the question is presented to me, alone: what to do with these presumably dead links that, at least for the time being, appear to be active?
Does one admit fault and replace them to the living list? Or, does one chalk up this new invigoration to the fact that something was said in the first place? Assume that the usual will continue on, in its way - assume that these links will only henceforth be dead. Consider these new activities just unconscious adeius to the old?

I think that is what I will do.