4 ms·

Why the Archive.org link? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2138014.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2138014.stm

Andoryuuta 4y ago
Oh! To be entirely honest, I got the link directly from a reference on a Wikipedia page, so I assumed the old link must be down since it was using archive.org. With that being said, the archive.org link is probably better in case anyone comes across this HN discussion in the future.
- VoidWhisperer 4y ago
  I think Wikipedia references are encouraged to use archive links because it will show the page at the time that they used it as a reference as opposed to linking to the live page which can change at any time.
  - gbear605 4y ago
    Wikipedia references should include both the live url and the archive url, and then set the “dead” flag to either true or false to choose which url to link to. Probably either an automated process or an inattentive user falsely marked the url as dead.
  - runlevel1 4y ago
    Wikipedia has been around long enough that many of the citation links pointing to other websites are broken. So there are several wiki bots that go around replacing direct links with links to the archived pages.
  - jwilk 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem links both to the live page and to the archived copy (in that order). Linking only to an archived copy when the original is still live would be unusual.
- dang 4y ago
  We ask people not to submit archive links* because it's important for readers to see the original provenance of the article, e.g. in the site name displayed to the right of the title. "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html * If the original article is really not available anywhere else on the web and is interesting enough for a good HN thread, posting archive.org is ok.
  - Andoryuuta 4y ago
    Noted. Thanks for updating the link!
benbristow 4y ago
Not often I give props to the BBC, but impressive how they've managed to keep that page/article working for so long. Even most of the links on the page still take you to somewhere relevant and the search box still works. Surprised they haven't bothered to try and migrate the old articles to their newer systems though!
- londons_explore 4y ago
  I guess it's still running on the original server... the page took about 30 seconds to load for me!
  - endorphine 4y ago
    It took less than 1sec for me, on mobile w/ 4G.
- dmw_ng 4y ago
  The genius is exactly that they haven't bothered. Can you imagine the flow of layout bugs over the past 20 years, or the managers calling to scrap old content because it's generating so much workload? That's very much a successful case of avoiding needless technology
  - benbristow 4y ago
    Serving up unsecure HTTP pages isn't ideal though.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - no_identd 4y ago
      Oh boy do I got news for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk
      - 4y ago
onionisafruit 4y ago
Interesting that this is in the Science/Nature section. I wonder why not Technology.
dang 4y ago
We've changed to that now from https://web.archive.org/web/20210126143212/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2138014.stm https://web.archive.org/web/20210126143212/http://news.bbc.c.... Thanks!

Andoryuuta 4y ago

Oh! To be entirely honest, I got the link directly from a reference on a Wikipedia page, so I assumed the old link must be down since it was using archive.org. With that being said, the archive.org link is probably better in case anyone comes across this HN discussion in the future.

VoidWhisperer 4y ago
I think Wikipedia references are encouraged to use archive links because it will show the page at the time that they used it as a reference as opposed to linking to the live page which can change at any time.
- gbear605 4y ago
  Wikipedia references should include both the live url and the archive url, and then set the “dead” flag to either true or false to choose which url to link to. Probably either an automated process or an inattentive user falsely marked the url as dead.
- runlevel1 4y ago
  Wikipedia has been around long enough that many of the citation links pointing to other websites are broken. So there are several wiki bots that go around replacing direct links with links to the archived pages.
- jwilk 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem links both to the live page and to the archived copy (in that order). Linking only to an archived copy when the original is still live would be unusual.
dang 4y ago
We ask people not to submit archive links* because it's important for readers to see the original provenance of the article, e.g. in the site name displayed to the right of the title. "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html * If the original article is really not available anywhere else on the web and is interesting enough for a good HN thread, posting archive.org is ok.
- Andoryuuta 4y ago
  Noted. Thanks for updating the link!

benbristow 4y ago

Not often I give props to the BBC, but impressive how they've managed to keep that page/article working for so long. Even most of the links on the page still take you to somewhere relevant and the search box still works. Surprised they haven't bothered to try and migrate the old articles to their newer systems though!

londons_explore 4y ago
I guess it's still running on the original server... the page took about 30 seconds to load for me!
- endorphine 4y ago
  It took less than 1sec for me, on mobile w/ 4G.
dmw_ng 4y ago
The genius is exactly that they haven't bothered. Can you imagine the flow of layout bugs over the past 20 years, or the managers calling to scrap old content because it's generating so much workload? That's very much a successful case of avoiding needless technology
- benbristow 4y ago
  Serving up unsecure HTTP pages isn't ideal though.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - no_identd 4y ago
    Oh boy do I got news for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk
    - 4y ago

onionisafruit 4y ago

Interesting that this is in the Science/Nature section. I wonder why not Technology.

dang 4y ago

We've changed to that now from https://web.archive.org/web/20210126143212/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2138014.stm https://web.archive.org/web/20210126143212/http://news.bbc.c.... Thanks!