5 ms·

Donate to the Internet Archive

181 points by jakeogh 12y ago

smeyer 12y ago
Here's a link to the donation page (rather than to the main page, which happens to have a donation banner now): https://archive.org/donate/index.php https://archive.org/donate/index.php .
- sctb 12y ago
  Thanks, we changed it from https://archive.org https://archive.org.
striking 12y ago
They need a whole $75/person instant as compared to Wikipedia's $3/person instant and they're not resorting to shouty, loud boxes that open modals on mobile platforms. I love you, Internet Archive.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- cmelbye 12y ago
  I don't know about mobile (I've only noticed a small banner on at the bottom of the page on WP), but it appears they're using the exact same style of banner that Wikimedia use? They even explicitly give thanks to Wikimedia in the footer of their fundraising banner. I think both services are great, so I don't really mind if either of them decide to optimize their conversion rates, just like any other startup would.
dmethvin 12y ago
Just in case you'd like to look at their financials before donating, they are at faqs.org [1]. I couldn't find the official IRS Form 990 online. [1] http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/CA/Internet-Archive.html#analysisOfRevenueAndExpenses http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/CA/Internet-Archive.html#anal...
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Their 2012 990PF: http://207.153.189.83/EINS/943242767/943242767_2012_09c9e75b.PDF http://207.153.189.83/EINS/943242767/943242767_2012_09c9e75b... http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/?FuseAction=NPO.Summary&EIN=943242767&BMF=1&Cobrandid=0&Syndicate=No http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/?FuseAction=NPO.Summar...
jws 12y ago
Sounds reasonable. I did just have to use them as "backup of last resort" to recover a web site. A little scraping turned "sorry, its gone", into "web site is back online".
benbreen 12y ago
Archive.org has been an absolute godsend for historians and others who use rare books. Case in point: when I was doing PhD research in Lisbon three years ago, I had to search several rare book shops and ended up paying 80 euros for a very rare 19th century Portuguese book I needed for my research. Here it is on archive.org in multiple editions, all text-searchable: https://archive.org/search.php?query=duarte%20ribeiro%20de%20macedo https://archive.org/search.php?query=duarte%20ribeiro%20de%2...
equivocates 12y ago
Are you kidding me, I'm trying to take down my internet history, not keep it around.
- cogburnd02 12y ago
  Except _internet_history_ is no-one's to control; once something is on the internet, it belongs to The People.
  - abootstrapper 12y ago
    Right, like revenge porn and Celebgate! Once someone has seen it online, everyone has the RIGHT to see it until the end of time.
    - voltagex_ 12y ago
      Who gets to decide what is and isn't of historical value?
    - cogburnd02 12y ago
      Well, we have access to letters written by Thomas Jefferson and letters written by Emily Dickinson they probably didn't think we should have. (They were private letters, after all.) But we have a more comprehensive view of these people because of it.
- HCIdivision17 12y ago
  You can get your site taken down, if that's your worry. But like generally on the internet, your best recourse is to control your online presence at the source. Don't post regrettable things publicly, and you should be fine. If other people do it to you, your issue really would be with them; fortunately, if something terrible is done, you've the Archive to prove the damage and back you up. It really is a different beast from your normal panopticon internet tracking. This is more akin to showing up in the newspaper, rather than a surveillance camera. [0] https://archive.org/about/faqs.php#29 https://archive.org/about/faqs.php#29
pkaye 12y ago
I just donated... I use them all the time to look up old computer magazines from the 90s.
- cogburnd02 12y ago
  That's how I read BYTE. It's also a good source/reference for (some (specific)) WP articles. https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CHIP-8&diff=585383077&oldid=580877928 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CHIP-8&diff=585383... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Halt_and_Catch_Fire&diff=593246287&oldid=580194900 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Halt_and_Catch_Fir...
  - pkaye 12y ago
    Look how many computer magazines are available: https://archive.org/details/computermagazines https://archive.org/details/computermagazines
allworknoplay 12y ago
I hate to sounds bitter, but I've been a donator for ~8 years, and the one time I asked for help (really: filed a bug report re: an archive they said they had but which didn't acually resolve & which I needed access to) they did not get back to me, ever, despite numerous support requests and additional donations. I'm not sure whether that means they need more funding or whether they're simply unresponsive, but it definitely didn't help me solve my problems with a trademark troll.
chroma 12y ago
I've donated to the Internet Archive and I'm a big fan of Jason Scott, but the Internet Archive is not an archive. Any site on it can go down without warning, thanks to the fact that they apply current robots.txt rules to past archives. Once a domain squatter or regretful admin forbids archivebot (or crawlers in general), archive.org's copy goes down. This has ruined many supposedly permanent links. The infamous "She's a Flight Risk" blog from a decade ago is down.[1] My first website is missing. Even public domain stuff like NASA's report on nuclear propulsion is gone.[2] With just a small rule change (obey robots.txt at the time of crawling), they could eliminate the risk of a page disappearing. Instead, we're stuck with a slower version of the link rot we're used to. It doesn't stop me from supporting them, but it's incredibly frustrating. 1. https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.aflightrisk.blogspot.com https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.aflightrisk.blogspo... 2. http://web.archive.org/web/20121029225832/http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770085619_1977085619.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20121029225832/http://ntrs.nasa.g...
- Springtime 12y ago
  > archive.org's copy goes down. From asking around they do retain the original data, but exclude it from public results following a robots.txt exclusion. It's something I do wish they would re-consider though as it limits the purpose.
  - chroma 12y ago
    I hope your claim about them keeping the data is correct, but... If a tree falls in the woods and robots.txt later excludes it, does archive.org make a sound? While the distinction may be useful to someone with access to the data, it doesn't matter to me. From my point of view, the URL goes from available to unavailable. It's indistinguishable from typical link rot. The Internet Archive has kept their robots.txt policy for over a decade now, despite constant requests to change it. I doubt they'll change it any time soon.
    - cogburnd02 12y ago
      There's a forum here: https://archive.org/post/406632/why-does-the-wayback-machine-pay-attention-to-robotstxt https://archive.org/post/406632/why-does-the-wayback-machine... Maybe if it gets enough attention, and/or the Internet Archive people get enough e-mails about this problem (Wayback Machine obeying robots.txt) then they'll change their mind. https://archive.org/about/bios.php https://archive.org/about/bios.php Here's a link with the director's email: http://brewster.kahle.org/about/ http://brewster.kahle.org/about/
benjaminRRR 12y ago
This is something I am happy to donate for. These guys have been plugging away quietly for a long time to give us a record that would otherwise literally disappear into thin air.
brewsterkahl 12y ago
There have been a bunch more donations since this has been posted on HN. The easiest way to see this is the subset that is donated via bitcoins: https://blockchain.info/address/1Archive1n2C579dMsAu3iC6tWzuQJz8dN https://blockchain.info/address/1Archive1n2C579dMsAu3iC6tWzu... more disks and bandwidth!

181 points by jakeogh 12y ago

Here's a link to the donation page (rather than to the main page, which happens to have a donation banner now): https://archive.org/donate/index.php https://archive.org/donate/index.php .

sctb 12y ago
Thanks, we changed it from https://archive.org https://archive.org.

striking 12y ago

They need a whole $75/person instant as compared to Wikipedia's $3/person instant and they're not resorting to shouty, loud boxes that open modals on mobile platforms. I love you, Internet Archive.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cmelbye 12y ago
I don't know about mobile (I've only noticed a small banner on at the bottom of the page on WP), but it appears they're using the exact same style of banner that Wikimedia use? They even explicitly give thanks to Wikimedia in the footer of their fundraising banner. I think both services are great, so I don't really mind if either of them decide to optimize their conversion rates, just like any other startup would.

dmethvin 12y ago

Just in case you'd like to look at their financials before donating, they are at faqs.org [1]. I couldn't find the official IRS Form 990 online. [1] http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/CA/Internet-Archive.html#analysisOfRevenueAndExpenses http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/CA/Internet-Archive.html#anal...

toomuchtodo 12y ago
Their 2012 990PF: http://207.153.189.83/EINS/943242767/943242767_2012_09c9e75b.PDF http://207.153.189.83/EINS/943242767/943242767_2012_09c9e75b... http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/?FuseAction=NPO.Summary&EIN=943242767&BMF=1&Cobrandid=0&Syndicate=No http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/?FuseAction=NPO.Summar...

jws 12y ago

Sounds reasonable. I did just have to use them as "backup of last resort" to recover a web site. A little scraping turned "sorry, its gone", into "web site is back online".

benbreen 12y ago

Archive.org has been an absolute godsend for historians and others who use rare books. Case in point: when I was doing PhD research in Lisbon three years ago, I had to search several rare book shops and ended up paying 80 euros for a very rare 19th century Portuguese book I needed for my research. Here it is on archive.org in multiple editions, all text-searchable: https://archive.org/search.php?query=duarte%20ribeiro%20de%20macedo https://archive.org/search.php?query=duarte%20ribeiro%20de%2...

equivocates 12y ago

Are you kidding me, I'm trying to take down my internet history, not keep it around.

cogburnd02 12y ago
Except _internet_history_ is no-one's to control; once something is on the internet, it belongs to The People.
- abootstrapper 12y ago
  Right, like revenge porn and Celebgate! Once someone has seen it online, everyone has the RIGHT to see it until the end of time.
  - voltagex_ 12y ago
    Who gets to decide what is and isn't of historical value?
  - cogburnd02 12y ago
    Well, we have access to letters written by Thomas Jefferson and letters written by Emily Dickinson they probably didn't think we should have. (They were private letters, after all.) But we have a more comprehensive view of these people because of it.
HCIdivision17 12y ago
You can get your site taken down, if that's your worry. But like generally on the internet, your best recourse is to control your online presence at the source. Don't post regrettable things publicly, and you should be fine. If other people do it to you, your issue really would be with them; fortunately, if something terrible is done, you've the Archive to prove the damage and back you up. It really is a different beast from your normal panopticon internet tracking. This is more akin to showing up in the newspaper, rather than a surveillance camera. [0] https://archive.org/about/faqs.php#29 https://archive.org/about/faqs.php#29

pkaye 12y ago

I just donated... I use them all the time to look up old computer magazines from the 90s.

cogburnd02 12y ago
That's how I read BYTE. It's also a good source/reference for (some (specific)) WP articles. https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CHIP-8&diff=585383077&oldid=580877928 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CHIP-8&diff=585383... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Halt_and_Catch_Fire&diff=593246287&oldid=580194900 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Halt_and_Catch_Fir...
- pkaye 12y ago
  Look how many computer magazines are available: https://archive.org/details/computermagazines https://archive.org/details/computermagazines

allworknoplay 12y ago

I hate to sounds bitter, but I've been a donator for ~8 years, and the one time I asked for help (really: filed a bug report re: an archive they said they had but which didn't acually resolve & which I needed access to) they did not get back to me, ever, despite numerous support requests and additional donations. I'm not sure whether that means they need more funding or whether they're simply unresponsive, but it definitely didn't help me solve my problems with a trademark troll.

chroma 12y ago

I've donated to the Internet Archive and I'm a big fan of Jason Scott, but the Internet Archive is not an archive. Any site on it can go down without warning, thanks to the fact that they apply current robots.txt rules to past archives. Once a domain squatter or regretful admin forbids archivebot (or crawlers in general), archive.org's copy goes down. This has ruined many supposedly permanent links. The infamous "She's a Flight Risk" blog from a decade ago is down.[1] My first website is missing. Even public domain stuff like NASA's report on nuclear propulsion is gone.[2] With just a small rule change (obey robots.txt at the time of crawling), they could eliminate the risk of a page disappearing. Instead, we're stuck with a slower version of the link rot we're used to. It doesn't stop me from supporting them, but it's incredibly frustrating. 1. https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.aflightrisk.blogspot.com https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.aflightrisk.blogspo... 2. http://web.archive.org/web/20121029225832/http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770085619_1977085619.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20121029225832/http://ntrs.nasa.g...

Springtime 12y ago
> archive.org's copy goes down. From asking around they do retain the original data, but exclude it from public results following a robots.txt exclusion. It's something I do wish they would re-consider though as it limits the purpose.
- chroma 12y ago
  I hope your claim about them keeping the data is correct, but... If a tree falls in the woods and robots.txt later excludes it, does archive.org make a sound? While the distinction may be useful to someone with access to the data, it doesn't matter to me. From my point of view, the URL goes from available to unavailable. It's indistinguishable from typical link rot. The Internet Archive has kept their robots.txt policy for over a decade now, despite constant requests to change it. I doubt they'll change it any time soon.
  - cogburnd02 12y ago
    There's a forum here: https://archive.org/post/406632/why-does-the-wayback-machine-pay-attention-to-robotstxt https://archive.org/post/406632/why-does-the-wayback-machine... Maybe if it gets enough attention, and/or the Internet Archive people get enough e-mails about this problem (Wayback Machine obeying robots.txt) then they'll change their mind. https://archive.org/about/bios.php https://archive.org/about/bios.php Here's a link with the director's email: http://brewster.kahle.org/about/ http://brewster.kahle.org/about/

benjaminRRR 12y ago

This is something I am happy to donate for. These guys have been plugging away quietly for a long time to give us a record that would otherwise literally disappear into thin air.

brewsterkahl 12y ago

There have been a bunch more donations since this has been posted on HN. The easiest way to see this is the subset that is donated via bitcoins: https://blockchain.info/address/1Archive1n2C579dMsAu3iC6tWzuQJz8dN https://blockchain.info/address/1Archive1n2C579dMsAu3iC6tWzu... more disks and bandwidth!