The Movie Database Support

Are there any alternatives people are aware of to wayback machine that is likely to have archives of tv/film websites? Ive been trying to use wayback machine to add some episode overviews for a series called My Husband's Lover but unforunately as you can see: https://web.archive.org/web/20140811042247/http://www.gmanetwork.com/gma/myhusbandslover/episodes wayback machine is insufficient and can only be used to view overviews for a couple of the episodes. I was wondering if anybody had knowledge of any useful alternatives?

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The link you posted in your message takes me to an error page: 503 Service Unavailable No server is available to handle this request.

@pt100 said:

The link you posted in your message takes me to an error page: 503 Service Unavailable No server is available to handle this request.

l think the whole site is down at the moment maybe

I'm not aware of any better sites for that info. The Wayback Machine is sort of the gold standard. Maybe the machine just hasn't updated the info yet. Sometimes it takes a long time for it to crawl the Web again.

Or it is possible that the fan site has a robots.txt file error or specification limitation that is preventing full archiving; or they had an incomplete listing of episodes. So maybe the problem is not at the machine itself, but at the source it is trying to archive. You could contact the fan site to see if they know what's going on.

I also notice that when I clicked on the link to the next page of episodes, I am taken to this page. Maybe that will help.

@pt100 said:

I'm not aware of any better sites for that info. The Wayback Machine is sort of the gold standard. Maybe the machine just hasn't updated the info yet. Sometimes it takes a long time for it to crawl the Web again.

Or it is possible that the fan site has a robots.txt file error or specification limitation that is preventing full archiving; or they had an incomplete listing of episodes. So maybe the problem is not at the machine itself, but at the source it is trying to archive. You could contact the fan site to see if they know what's going on.

I also notice that when I clicked on the link to the next page of episodes, I am taken to this page. Maybe that will help.

Wait, its a fan site?

also what do you mean hasnt updated the info, is it possible for wayback machine to...archive what a website used to look like years into the past?

(I guess I dont actually know for sure how that site archives stuff. I always just imagined it archives things in present time- so if it doesnt have an archive of a site at a particular time in the past- thats it- it can only archive what it looks like now. i didnt consider the possibility that any website could possibly retroactively archive what a site used to look like)

@softpillow said:

Wait, its a fan site?

The archived website is, I believe, considered a fan site for that TV show, but it may be just one of several. By fan site I mean it appeals to fans of the show, irrespective of who actually created it (fans, production company, etc.). It is distinct from the Wayback Machine site, which does the archiving, along with some other entities who also help archive material for them.

also what do you mean hasnt updated the info, is it possible for wayback machine to...archive what a website used to look like years into the past?

It may take a "snapshot" of a website at a moment in time, and then keep several copies over time as it re-crawls the site from time to time. I believe that for many websites you can choose to retrieve what the site looked like when it was captured at a particular point in time. So you might be able to look at how a site looked as far back as 1996 or as recently as a few weeks ago, depending on when and how many times it was crawled.

(I guess I dont actually know for sure how that site archives stuff. I always just imagined it archives things in present time- so if it doesnt have an archive of a site at a particular time in the past- thats it- it can only archive what it looks like now. i didnt consider the possibility that any website could possibly retroactively archive what a site used to look like)

It obviously can't actually go back in time to see what a site looked like years ago. It can only show us what the site looked like when it got crawled at various times in the past.

I suggest you read the Wikipedia article and then go to the Wayback Machine, read their description of how it works and how to use it, and then play around with it, looking at a URL/top-level domain page captured at various points in the past. From the top-level page in the machine you should be able to navigate the archived site as though it were live at its original location--but frozen in time.

So you should be able to drill down to lower level pages, etc., unless they were not captured fully during a crawl. Also I believe some images and some other content are sometimes not fully captured, so the site may look incomplete. That may be part of the problem you seem to be experiencing.

@pt100 said:

@softpillow said:

Wait, its a fan site?

The archived website is, I believe, considered a fan site for that TV show, but it may be just one of several. By fan site I mean it appeals to fans of the show, irrespective of who actually created it (fans, production company, etc.). It is distinct from the Wayback Machine site, which does the archiving, along with some other entities who also help archive material for them.

In this case, the archived website is not a fan site. This is the official site of the original broadcaster of the show.

@superboy97 said:

@pt100 said:

@softpillow said:

Wait, its a fan site?

The archived website is, I believe, considered a fan site for that TV show, but it may be just one of several. By fan site I mean it appeals to fans of the show, irrespective of who actually created it (fans, production company, etc.). It is distinct from the Wayback Machine site, which does the archiving, along with some other entities who also help archive material for them.

In this case, the archived website is not a fan site. This is the official site of the original broadcaster of the show.

yep, okay thats what I thought.

I guess I've always understood the word "fansite" as meaning a site created by fans- an unofficial website.

@pt100 said:

also what do you mean hasnt updated the info, is it possible for wayback machine to...archive what a website used to look like years into the past?

It may take a "snapshot" of a website at a moment in time, and then keep several copies over time as it re-crawls the site from time to time. I believe that for many websites you can choose to retrieve what the site looked like when it was captured at a particular point in time. So you might be able to look at how a site looked as far back as 1996 or as recently as a few weeks ago, depending on when and how many times it was crawled.

(I guess I dont actually know for sure how that site archives stuff. I always just imagined it archives things in present time- so if it doesnt have an archive of a site at a particular time in the past- thats it- it can only archive what it looks like now. i didnt consider the possibility that any website could possibly retroactively archive what a site used to look like)

It obviously can't actually go back in time to see what a site looked like years ago. It can only show us what the site looked like when it got crawled at various times in the past.

Im confused. so if it can only show what the site looked like at varies times in the past (when snapshots were taken in those times in the past)- (but cant retroactively go back) what do you mean by "Maybe the machine just hasn't updated the info yet. Sometimes it takes a long time for it to crawl the Web again."? I took that to mean you were saying wayback might in the future add new archived snapshots of that gmanetwork website from years ago. (so like, new snapshots of gmanetwork.com/gma/myhusbandslover/episodes from 2014 or 2013, etc. (not present time 2021) that are not currently available on there now)

@softpillow said:

I guess I've always understood the word "fansite" as meaning a site created by fans- an unofficial website.

You are right.

@pt100 said:

also what do you mean hasnt updated the info, is it possible for wayback machine to...archive what a website used to look like years into the past?

It may take a "snapshot" of a website at a moment in time, and then keep several copies over time as it re-crawls the site from time to time. I believe that for many websites you can choose to retrieve what the site looked like when it was captured at a particular point in time. So you might be able to look at how a site looked as far back as 1996 or as recently as a few weeks ago, depending on when and how many times it was crawled.

(I guess I dont actually know for sure how that site archives stuff. I always just imagined it archives things in present time- so if it doesnt have an archive of a site at a particular time in the past- thats it- it can only archive what it looks like now. i didnt consider the possibility that any website could possibly retroactively archive what a site used to look like)

It obviously can't actually go back in time to see what a site looked like years ago. It can only show us what the site looked like when it got crawled at various times in the past.

Im confused. so if it can only show what the site looked like at varies times in the past (when snapshots were taken in those times in the past)- (but cant retroactively go back) what do you mean by "Maybe the machine just hasn't updated the info yet. Sometimes it takes a long time for it to crawl the Web again."? I took that to mean you were saying wayback might in the future add new archived snapshots of that gmanetwork website from years ago. (so like, new snapshots of gmanetwork.com/gma/myhusbandslover/episodes from 2014 or 2013, etc. (not present time 2021) that are not currently available on there now)

Are you saying its possible it (wayback machine) took more snapshots of the site back in 2014 or whatever year before 2021, but it just hasnt been made available yet to us?

@softpillow said:

Are you saying its possible it (wayback machine) took more snapshots of the site back in 2014 or whatever year before 2021, but it just hasnt been made available yet to us?

Normally, this is not possible.

@superboy97 said:

In this case, the archived website is not a fan site. This is the official site of the original broadcaster of the show.

As I pointed out above, I was using the term fan site more loosely as being designed for fans (and others), irrespective of who designed it. I specifically mentioned the production company as possibly being behind it, not just fans.

@pt100 said:

I was using the term fan site more loosely as being designed for fans

The term fansite should only be used for sites made by fans, not for sites made for fans.

@pt100 said:

@superboy97 said:

In this case, the archived website is not a fan site. This is the official site of the original broadcaster of the show.

As I pointed out above, I was using the term fan site more loosely as being designed for fans (and others), irrespective of who designed it. I specifically mentioned the production company as possibly being behind it, not just fans.

I think its only being clarified because its important to know whether its an official site vs. a fansite (in the traditional sense) because official websites are whats suggested as good sources for overviews for this database. This/my post is about using that archived website for episodic overviews on this database. The clarification is for that, not that your explanation of your use of the word wasnt understood, I think.

@softpillow said:

Are you saying its possible it (wayback machine) took more snapshots of the site back in 2014 or whatever year before 2021, but it just hasnt been made available yet to us?

No, I'm saying that a very recent crawling of the site may not yet be available. But they try to make results available fairly quickly. E.g., I just searched for my biz website's URL and it said: Saved 153 times between December 12, 1998 and May 14, 2020.

So I can select a version I'd like to look at if I so choose. I.e., they first crawled the site on 12/12/1998 and last crawled it on 5/14/2020.

Just plug in the URL of the site you're interested in, as I said before, and you can see what it looked like at a particular time using their slider tool. If you have more questions, please just do as I suggested and do some reading and playing around. I have no more to contribute to the discussion.

@pt100 said:

@softpillow said:

Are you saying its possible it (wayback machine) took more snapshots of the site back in 2014 or whatever year before 2021, but it just hasnt been made available yet to us?

No, I'm saying that a very recent crawling of the site may not yet be available. But they try to make results available fairly quickly. E.g., I just searched for my biz website's URL and it said: Saved 153 times between December 12, 1998 and May 14, 2020.

So I can select a version I'd like to look at if I so choose. I.e., they first crawled the site on 12/12/1998 and last crawled it on 5/14/2020.

Just plug in the URL of the site you're interested in, as I said before, and you can see what it looked like at a particular time using their slider tool. If you have more questions, please just do as I suggested and do some reading and playing around. I have no more to contribute to the discussion.

but I dont know why you would use an archive website to view what a website currently looks like. and in this situation the website has all episode information scrubbed (which is why im trying to view archived snapshots of it from years ago). so the current website is no use to me (and neither would archived versions of what it currently looks like). unless ive misunderstood what youve said.

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