Can we update this link to point to the archive version?
Brilliant
Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
191–200 of 262 posts
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#192I'm not sure I'm a fan of this because it just turns WayBackMachine into another content silo. It's called the world wide web for a reason, and this isn't helping. I can see it for corporate sites where they change content, remove pages, and break links without a moment's consideration. But for my personal site, for example, I'd much rather you link to me directly rather than content in WayBackMachine. Apart from any…
> What I can see, and I don't know if it exists yet (a quick search suggests perhaps not), is some build task that will check all links and replace those that are broken with links to WayBackMachine Addendum: First, that same tool should – at the time of creating your web site / blog post / … – ask WayBackMachine to capture those links in the first place. That would actually be a very neat feature, as it would guaran…
Doesn't Wikipedia do something like this? If not, the WBM/Archive.org does something like it on Wikipedia's behalf.
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#193I'm not sure I'm a fan of this because it just turns WayBackMachine into another content silo. It's called the world wide web for a reason, and this isn't helping. I can see it for corporate sites where they change content, remove pages, and break links without a moment's consideration. But for my personal site, for example, I'd much rather you link to me directly rather than content in WayBackMachine. Apart from any…
> But for my personal site, for example, I'd much rather you link to me directly rather than content in WayBackMachine. That would make sense if users were archiving your site for your benefit, but they're probably not. If I were to archive your site, it's because I want my own bookmarks/backups/etc to be more reliable than just a link, not because I'm looking out to preserve your website. Otherwise, I'm just gamblin…
I can understand posting a link, plus an archival link just in case the original content is lost. But linking to an archival site only is IMO somewhat rude.
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#194For anything important you can't beat a good save to pdf feature in the browser. You can then upload the pdf and link to that instead. Someone should make a wordpress plugin to do this automatically.
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I certainly don't know about legal rights, but I think the ethical thing is to make sure that any writings published as freely accessible should remain so forever. What would people think if an author went into every library in the world to yank out one of their books they no longer want to be seen? I do think the author is wrong to immediately post links to archived versions of sources. At the least, he could link t…
I'm not sure I agree. I know that journalism (as a discipline) considers this ethical. I kinda get that this is part of the newspaper industry as a public service - that withdrawing publication of something, or changing it without alerting the reader to the change, alters the historical record. But no-one has a problem with other creative industries withdrawing their publications. Film-makers are forever deciding tha…
This has a very easy answer for me: It's not ethical for film makers to decide that movies are no longer available.
Copyright was created to encourage publication of information, not to squirrel it away. Copyright should be considered the exception of the standard - public domain.
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#196No one touched on this but the experience of viewing through the waybackmachine is awful. Media many times will not be saved so pages look broken. The iframe and the iframe breakers on original sites can kill any navigating. The waybackmachine is okay for researching but a poor replacement as a perm link.
> Media many times will not be saved so pages look broken.
In my experience, this has gotten much, much better in the last few years. I haven't explored enough to know if this is part of the archival process or not, but I've noticed on a few occasions that assets will suddenly appear some time after archiving a page. For instance, when I first archived this page (https://web.archive.org/web/20180928051336/https://www.intel...), none of the stylesheets, scripts, fonts or images were present. However, after some amount of time (days/weeks) they suddenly appeared and I was able to use the site as it originally appeared.
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#197We suggest/encourage people link to original URLs but ALSO (as opposed to instead of) provide Wayback Machine URLs so that if/when the original URLs go bad (link rot) the archive URL is available, or to give people a way to compare the content associated with a given URL over time (content drift)
BTW, we archive all outlinks from all Wikipedia articles from all Wikipedia sites, in near-real-time... so that we are able to fix them if/when they break. We have rescued more than 10 million so far from more than 30 Wikipedia sites. We are now working to have Wayback Machine URLs added IN ADDITION to Live Web links when any new outlinks are added... so that those references are "born archived" and inherently persistent.
Note, I manage the Wayback Machine team at the Internet Archive. We appreciate all your support, advice, suggestions and requests.
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps the wayback machine can help fix that by telling users to visit the authoritative site and demanding a confirmation clickthrough before showing the archived content.
> Perhaps the wayback machine can help fix that by telling users to visit the authoritative site and demanding a confirmation clickthrough before showing the archived content. I'm trying to figure out if you're being ironic or serious. People on here (rightly) spend a lot of time complaining about how user experience on the web is becoming terrible due to ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, endless cookie banners, consent form…
Agree, cut the clutter just like it is simple on the HN website.
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But for my personal site, for example, I'd much rather you link to me directly rather than content in WayBackMachine. That would make sense if users were archiving your site for your benefit, but they're probably not. If I were to archive your site, it's because I want my own bookmarks/backups/etc to be more reliable than just a link, not because I'm looking out to preserve your website. Otherwise, I'm just gamblin…
The issue is that if this becomes widespread then we're going to get into copyright claims against the wayback machine. When I write content it is mine. I don't even let Facebook crawlers index it because I don't want it appearing on their platform. I'm happy to have wayback machine archive it, but that's with the understanding that it is a backup, not an authoritative or primary source. Ideally, links would be able…
But it’s also not guaranteed to be consistent. What if you don’t delete the content but just change it? (I.e. what if your opinions change or you’re pressured to edit information by a third party?).
Re: Why I link to Wayback Machine instead of original web content
#200We suggest/encourage people link to original URLs but ALSO (as opposed to instead of) provide Wayback Machine URLs so that if/when the original URLs go bad (link rot) the archive URL is available, or to give people a way to compare the content associated with a given URL over time (content drift) BTW, we archive all outlinks from all Wikipedia articles from all Wikipedia sites, in near-real-time... so that we are abl…
Kudos for doing what you do.