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> You're arguing that since encyclopedias change their content, the Library of Congress should be allowed to change the content of the materials in its stacks.

As an end user of Wikipedia there are occasions where content has been scrubbed and/or edits hidden. Admins can see some of those, but end users cannot (with various justifications, some excellent/reasonable and some.. nebulous). That's all I'm saying, nothing about Congress or such other nonsense. It seems like an occasion of the pot calling the kettle names from this side of the fence.

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But Wikipedia promises you that it will modify its content. They're transparent about that promise.

An archival site (by default definition) promises you that it will not modify its content. And when it does, it's no longer an archival site.

Wikipedia has never been an archival site and it never will be. archive.today was an archival site, but now it never will be again.


This is your imaginary archive from the world of pink ponies.

Meanwhile their IMA on Reddit: no promises, no commitment. Just like Microsoft EULA :)

https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1i277vt/psa_ar...


What I don't see on that page is where they explicitly don't promise to not modify anything in the archive.

> What I don't see on that page is where they explicitly don't promise to not modify anything in the archive.

I'm quoting all of that because is lacks an explicit promise of non-modification /i

Meanwhile seriously, if you were disappointed not to see e.g. "We explicitly don't promise not to modify", then perhaps you should consider why, regardless, this site was trusted enough to get a gazillion links in Wikipedia... and HN.


> I'm quoting all of that because is lacks an explicit promise of non-modification.

And I'm quoting all of that because it lacks an explicit (or implicit) promise of modification. :)

It was (emphasis on past-tense) so-trusted because it advertises itself as an archival site. (The linked disclaimer is all about it not being a "long-term" archival site. It says it archives pages for latecomers. There is an implication here that it archives them accurately. What use is a site for latecomers if they change the content to be something else?) If they'd said or indicated they would be changing the content to no longer reflect the original site, Wikipedia would not have linked to them because they wouldn't be a credible source.

In any case, now I can't use them to share or use links since we can no longer trust those archives to be untampered. When I share a link to nyt content on archive.today or copy and paste content into email, I'm putting my name on that declaring "nyt printed this". If that's not true, it's my reputation.

Just like it was archive.today's.


> When I share a link to nyt content on archive.today or copy and paste content into email, I'm putting my name on that declaring "nyt printed this". If that's not true, it's my reputation.

What if the nyt article itself is the problem? How does that square?




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