In a significant move, Wikipedia editors have opted to eliminate all links to Archive.today, a popular web archiving service that had been referenced over 695,000 times within the encyclopedia. This decision comes in the wake of concerns regarding the site's reliability and its alleged involvement in a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
Archive.today, which operates under various domain names such as archive.is and archive.ph, is primarily utilized to access content that is often hidden behind paywalls, making it a valuable resource for Wikipedia citations. However, a recent discussion among Wikipedia contributors highlighted the site's questionable practices, leading to a consensus to blacklist it.
The Wikipedia discussion page outlined the rationale for this decision, stating, "There is consensus to immediately deprecate archive.today, and, as soon as practicable, add it to the spam blacklist." This marks a reversal from 2016, when Archive.today was previously removed from the blacklist.
The impetus for this latest action stems from allegations that Archive.today's operators manipulated archived content, compromising its integrity. The DDoS attack reportedly targeted blogger Jani Patokallio, who noted that users loading the archive's CAPTCHA page were unknowingly executing JavaScript that directed traffic to his blog, potentially inflating his hosting costs.
Patokallio had previously scrutinized Archive.today, describing its ownership as an "opaque mystery." He suggested that it might be run by a talented individual operating from Russia. In a more recent development, the webmaster of Archive.today requested Patokallio to remove his critical blog post for a few months, expressing concerns over how media outlets might misinterpret his content.
Concerns about the reliability of Archive.today were further compounded by evidence presented on the Wikipedia discussion page, which indicated that snapshots from the site had been altered to include Patokallio's name, raising alarms about its authenticity as an archive.
As a result, Wikipedia has updated its guidance for editors to replace links to Archive.today with references to original sources or alternative archives like the Wayback Machine. The apparent owner of Archive.today acknowledged the site's value to Wikipedia but emphasized that its primary function was to alleviate copyright issues rather than circumvent paywalls.
In a blog post linked from Archive.today, the owner remarked on the site's tumultuous journey, suggesting that it had ultimately fared well despite the controversies, and hinted at scaling back the alleged DDoS activities.
This decision by Wikipedia underscores the importance of maintaining the integrity of information and the responsibility of digital platforms to ensure reliable access to archived content.
