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Comment by silicon2401 | Hacker News Reader

> 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 gambling that you won't one day change your content, design, etc on a whim.

Hence I'm in a similar boat as the blog author. If there's a webpage I really like, I download and archive it myself. If it's not worth going through that process, I use the wayback machine. If it's not worth that, then I just keep a bookmark.

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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 to handle 404s and fallback. Like we can do with images and srcset in html. That way if my content goes away we have a backup. I can still write updates to a blog piece or add translations that people send in and everyone benefits from the dynamic nature of content, while still being able to either fallback or verify content at the time it was publish via the wayback machine.

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 forms, and miscellaneous GDPR nonsense, all of which get in the way of whatever it is you're trying to read or watch, and all of it on top of the more run-of-the-mill UX snafus with which people casually litter their sites.

Your idea boils down to adding another layer of consent clicking to the mess, to implement a semi-manual redirect through the WayBackMachine for every link clicked. That's ridiculous.

I have to believe you're being ironic because nobody could seriously think this is a good idea.

Agree, cut the clutter just like it is simple on the HN website.

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?).

I addressed this.

> I can still write updates to a blog piece or add translations that people send in and everyone benefits from the dynamic nature of content, while still being able to either fallback or verify content at the time it was publish via the wayback machine.

Updates are usually good. Sometimes you need to verify what was said though, and for that wayback machine works. I agree it would be nice if there was a technical way to support both, but for the average web request it's better to link to the source.

There already have been copyright claims against The Wayback Machine. They've been responding to it by allowing site owners to use robots.txt to remove their content.

I politely claim that your view is unrealistic (for published content). You may legally own it, but the instant you make content available to a party other than yourself, you lose any guarantee that you control it. Like I said in my earlier comment, if I find your site and like it, it gets downloaded and saved into my archive. Somebody else could trivially copy and paste or screenshot it to facebook.

I feel similarly to you: I want to own and control what I create. However I'm also realistic about the consequences of publishing it, so I don't publish anything I create beyond personally showing stuff to people who are close to me, and preferably from my own equipment directly. Unless you're doing the same, you don't actually control your content.

This may seem like a neurotic approach, but if you actually care about your content, it's not. It's not difficult to find cases of content being stolen and reused without the creator knowing; e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ZQoN6UrEw

It's a deep problem with the web as we know it.

If I want to make a "scrapbook" to support a research project of some kind. Really I want to make a "pyramid" with a general overview that is at most a few pages at the top, then some documents that are more detailed, but with the original reference material incorporated and linked to what it supports.

In 2020 much of that reference material will come from the web and you are left with doing the "webby" thing (linking) which is doomed to fall victim to broken links or with archiving the content which is OK for personal use, but will not be OK with the content owners if you make it public. You could say the public web is also becoming a cess pool/crime scene, where even reputable web sites are suspected of pervasive click fraud, where the line between marketing and harassment gets harder to see every day.

Is it a deep problem? You can download content you want to keep. There are many services like evernote and pocket that can help you with it.

It is, because it ultimately comes down to owner's control of how their content is being used.

For example, a modern news site will want the ability to define which text is "authoritative", and make modifications to it on the fly, including unpublishing it. As a reader OTOH, I want a permanent, immutable copy of everything said site ever publishes, so that silent edits and unpublishing is not possible. These two perspectives are in conflict, and that conflict repeats itself throughout the entire web.

Some consumers will want the latest and greatest content. To please everyone (other than the owner) you'd need to look at the content across time, versions, alternate world views,... Thus "deep".

My central use case is that I might 'scrape' content from sources such as

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

and have the process be "repeatable" in the sense that:

1. The system archives the original inputs and the process to create refined data outputs

2. If the inputs change the system should normally be able to download updated versions of the inputs, apply the process and produce good outputs

3. If something goes wrong there are sufficient diagnostics and tests that would show invariants are broken, or that the system can't tell how many fingers you are holding up

4. and in that case you can revert to "known good" inputs

I am thinking of data products here, but even if the 'product' is a paper, presentation, or report that involves human judgements there should be a structured process to propagate changes.

> If it's not worth that, then I just keep a bookmark.

I've made a habit of saving every page I bookmark to the WayBackMachine. To my mind, this is the best of both worlds: you'll see any edits, additions, etc. to the source material and if something you remember has been changed or gone missing, you have a static reference. I just wish there was an simple way to diff the two.

I keep meaning to write browser extensions to do both of these things on my behalf ...

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.

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