Finding Old Fic via the Wayback Machine

[starwatcher_fic]

 

Finding Old Fic via the Wayback Machine

I’m sure you’ve seen folks say, “I found it in the Wayback Machine.” For a long time my reaction was -- as yours may be -- “But how?!?!?” Well, I’ve been on an old-fic treasure-hunt for several months now, and I’ve learned / taught myself some tips and tricks. Now, in my inimitable, long-winded way, I’ll try to demystify the process. (I’m a retired teacher. “Start at the bottom and proceed step by step” is baked into my genes.)

If my instructions are too simplistic -- as in, you already know the basics -- check out this tutorial at Dreamwidth by Runpunkrun. Punk has more detailed information about how to make stubborn links give up their fic, as well as several posts at Tumbler with in-depth explanations. Also, Charles Rockafellor gives us some useful info about searching for AO3 pages on Wayback, partway down this tutorial; scroll down to ‘Wayback Machine’.

EDIT: Claire Houck is another great resource. Her post gives in-depth suggestions for how to find URLs for old fics.


(By the way -- yes, you may share this post wherever you want; I intend it for the benefit of fans everywhere.)

 

First and foremost -- this guide is NOT about finding deleted fic from AO3. (The tutorials from Punk and Charles tackle that.) It’s about finding the fic that hasn’t been moved to AO3 or Squidgeworld, the old fic that’s tucked away in multiple small, scattered archives that were so common in the early 2000’s. Those archives disappeared when the owners were no longer able to keep them up, or when the platforms shut down -- Geocities, anyone? But many of them are still accessible via the Wayback Machine, and it is often possible to find copies of that long-lost fic.

 

Before tackling the Wayback Machine, check to see if the fic is available in current archives -- Archive of Our Own,   or Squidgeworld,   or Fanfiction.net. Many authors have moved their fic to the larger archives, and AO3, in particular, has imported fic from older, specific-fandom archives, so the stories may already be available at one of these sites. Note that authors’ names may not be linked if they haven’t ‘claimed’ their imported works, or authors may have changed their pseudonym. I have found it more effective to search by fic-title and fandom, rather than fic-title and author.

But if you’ve searched the archives and not found the fic, it’s time to put on your treasure-hunter’s cap and venture into the wilds of pre-central-archive fandom sites.

 

First thing you need is the Wayback Machine, more formally called the Internet Archive, open in a browser window -- https://web.archive.org/

(Your layout may be different, with the search bar in the middle of the page. I use smaller windows, which moves things around.)

Notice “Enter a URL or words related to a site’s home page.” I have never managed with ‘words related’, but if you remember a uniquely-named site, it might work.

 

Second, you have a fic-URL, possibly from an old rec list, or from another fan. The fan says, “Oh, that’s An Irish Blessing, by Hazel. Here’s the addy.” They give you a plain URL -- http://www.btinternet.com:80/~hazel69/fiction/blessing.html   If you put that URL into a regular search engine, you get some kind of error message. When that happens, copy/paste the URL into the Wayback search bar and go from there. (Details later.)

BUT! Maybe the other fan says, “Here’s the addy for Rogue’s Sentinel Corps,” and they give you the Wayback URL that worked for them a few years ago --
http://web.archive.org/web/20030712014018/http://moodyblusr.us/rogue/sencorp.html   Unfortunately, it doesn’t work when you click on it because it references only one save-point, and that point seems to have disappeared. Neither does it work if you put the whole thing in the Wayback Machine; WB doesn’t recognize its own URLs. In this case, don’t use the whole URL! Go to the second ‘http’ and delete everything to the left, so that you get -- http://moodyblusr.us/rogue/sencorp.html

Put that basic fic-URL into the Wayback search bar. You get something like this --

If you’re searching for a single story, the easiest thing is to click on the first link that reads, ‘September 10, 2004’; the story should come up. If it doesn’t, or if you’re searching for a site, or a series page, you need to dig a little.

‘Digging’ is not difficult, but can be a bit tedious. Short version -- click on a year that has one or more vertical lines in it, as above; the yellow highlight indicates that that year’s calendar view is live. Then scan down the calendar, as below, to find a workable link.

Long version -- as you scan down the calendar, there are color-coded dots. Blue means a ‘live’ link. Teal means you’ll be redirected; it sometimes (not often) works with a green time-stamp, but it’s worth trying them if there are no blue dots. Orange means dead link. Pink means ‘server error’ -- basically a dead link.

Hover your cursor over your chosen blue spot. Then click on the timestamp to open the story or site.

Here’s where you may hit tedium -- ‘live’ saves and ‘dead’ saves are not logically distributed. (I always expect live links to be in older years, and dead links to be in newer years.) You may have ‘dead’ saves in 2007 and 2008, then a ‘live’ save in 2011. The same year may show a dead link in March but a live link in November. So if you hit a ‘dead’ link, scan down every calendar in every year that has a vertical bar to find a blue -- live -- link. If you find what you want, save it! You don’t know how long that link will be good.

If you’re searching for a single story, start in earlier years. Those links seem more stable, and the story (if completed) probably didn’t change. But if you’re searching for a site or series-page, start in later years, so that you can grab all the stories possible. (We don’t know how complete the site was when WB started saving it.) However, if blue spots in a later year give you error messages, go back a year or two -- say from 2009 to 2007 -- and try again.

 

I’ve discovered an advantage to saving a fic-page from Wayback -- it often saves with a visible reference URL. This very convenient for sharing in fic-finder communities; you can provide the URL and let the folks who want the fic download their own copies, instead of fielding a dozen requests for an emailed copy.

There seem to be three types of saved pages. One shows the original URL at the upper left, just under the browser’s addy bar, as in the white page below. Another shows the complete Wayback URL stretched across the top of the page, as in the brown page below.

The third type of saved page doesn’t show the source; I suspect the difference is in the original site’s setup. But it’s kind of disappointing. Now that I know how useful it is to have an original URL, I make a doc for that author’s folder, then copy/paste the URLs if they don’t show in the saved pages, so I’ll always have the necessary info.

 

Troubleshooting Tips

NOTE: If you haven’t already read it, check out this tutorial at Dreamwidth by Runpunkrun. Punk has more detailed information about how to make stubborn links give up their fic, as well as several posts at Tumbler with in-depth explanations. Or take a look at Charles Rockafellor’s tutorial about links for AO3 addresses; scroll down to ‘Wayback Machine’.

EDIT: Claire Houck is another great resource. Her post gives in-depth suggestions for how to find URLs for old fics.

 

As marvelous as the Wayback Machine is, it’s kind of kludgy; somewhat frequently, the page you’re waiting for opens with an error message. Short version -- copy the URL that didn’t open, then paste it into a fresh version of Wayback (first illustration, up at the top) and take it from there. This doesn’t always work, but the success rate is high enough -- about 60% for me -- that it’s worth the attempt.

EXAMPES --

[1] At the bottom of the fic, there’s a link for ‘Return to Home Page’, which useful for finding the original site and grabbing other stories by that author. BUT! It opens to ‘Page Not Found’ or similar. Copy the URL from your browser’s address bar, paste that into a fresh version of Wayback. The Home Page often opens from the fresh input.

[2] The story has several chapters, with a link to the next at the bottom of each... but Chapter 3 gives you an error message. Examine the URLs of the chapters that opened; they’re often sequential, as in the “First Contact” illustration above. Chapter 1 URL ends in ‘/sc-1’. Chapter 2 URL ends in ‘/sc-2’. So copy Chapter 2’s URL, paste it in a fresh Wayback window, change ‘/sc-2’ to ‘/sc-3’, hit enter and see if the Chapter 3 opens.. If it doesn’t, try to grab Chapter 4 the same way. You might not get Chapter 3, but you may get the rest of the story.

[3] Sometimes you get a ‘Loading / Redirecting’ page that will take you to an error page with a useless URL for the error page --

Before the error page opens (the system takes a few seconds to grind through the process), copy the first part of the top URL shown (underlined in red). Then paste that URL into a fresh Wayback page.

I repeat: pasting a grabbed URL into a fresh version of Wayback doesn’t always work, but it’s definitely worth a try. I’ve also discovered that sometimes it works on a different day! I recently grabbed several fics that didn’t open for me two weeks ago, but opened promptly and easily when I tried again. (Except for one. There’s always one, right?) So keep a list of URLs for fics that won’t open, then try them again in a week or two.

 

Locating the Original Site for more Stories

Fans are dedicated. When we find one “lost story” by an author, we may want to grab all of their stories. But suppose, as sometimes happens, the only available URL is for a single story, and that page has no link to the home-page, or other site ID.

Sometimes it’s possible to reach the main site by shortening the original single-story URL.

EXAMPLE 1: I had this link to Crossed Swords by Anne, which came up easily in the Wayback Machine --
          http://www.slashnexus.com/TheSentinel/20010506_CrossedSwords.html

Then I shortened the URL in hopes of finding the main Sentinel page --
          http://www.slashnexus.com/TheSentinel/

That didn’t work, so I tried it without the final slash --
          http://www.slashnexus.com/TheSentinel

That didn’t work, so I shortened the URL again --
          http://www.slashnexus.com

Success! I reached the site, with only one story by Anne, but a nice selection of other stories by other authors.

At this point, the astute reader will notice that “http://www.SlashNexus.com” is right there at the top left of the story. *facepalm* Yeah, sometimes StarWatcher is very dense. I think I assumed it was the provider’s URL, rather than a site-link. In this case, no harm done. But learn from my mistake -- check all over the page if you’re searching for a site-link!

 

EXAMPLE 2: Depending on the site, such a search may not reach an author page or home page. Instead, the system reports that Wayback has not archived the addy, BUT it tells us that “This page is available on the web!” (Makes no sense to me, either. Just roll with it.) In the illustration below, I tried to get a page for AliCat’s stories at the Stargate archive, Area 52. Note the bottom red arrow, where the page offers, “Click here to search...” (Depending on how wide your browser window is, that may be above the center box instead of below.) Click that link.

With a little luck, a page opens with a list of story-links in the left column, as below. Be patient; it takes a little while to populate. Consequently, it’s more efficient to right-click on each link and open the story-page in a new window. A direct click does open the story page -- but when you go back for the next link, you have to wait for the links-list to repopulate.

Each link will (should) open to the standard Wayback grid. Since the goal is to grab a single story, clicking on the first linked date is the most efficient way to open the story page.

In this case, each story-page opened easily. BUT! Remember, if it opens to ‘Page not found’ or a similar message, copy the URL in your browser bar, then paste it into a fresh version of Wayback.

This example is a best-case scenario; all 22 linked URLs applied directly to the search -- fanfic for a specific author on a specific site. But depending on the search-string used, there may be several hundred results. Yikes! Punk has an explanation of how to handle that situation for AO3 searches, but I can’t quite figure out how to apply it to other sites. If I do, I’ll add that information. Until then, it’s either back away, or accept the tedium of scanning down each column for the fic-URLs we want.

 

Okay -- second verse of “That’s all I have for now.” As I said above, feel free to share wherever you think it might be useful.

Also, if you have any tips that you think I should include, add a comment and let me know. Or if I’m not clear anywhere, let me know and I’ll try to make it plainer.

Finally -- Yes, I fully intend to share all my “research” -- links to old sites in general, and links to specific stories as necessary. But that is literally hundreds of entries on the list; it’s not yet ready to be posted. When it’s ready, the list (or lists) will be accessible through this master post. I’ll add an announcement to the end of this post when the list goes live, or you can bookmark the Master Post link below and check back occasionally.

https://starwatcher-fic.dreamwidth.org/36338.html