Talk:Wayback Machine (Peabody's Improbable History)

Introduction

I have created this page and resorted the wikilinks to WABAC, Way back machine, etc. to sort out what seemed to me to be an inaccurate arrangement. Previous pages for wayback machine redirected to the Internet Archives, while the WABAC page redirected to Mr. Peabody. Seems to me the article is more accurate now, reflecting the original WABAC machine, the use of the term in popular culture, and the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archives. Happy to discuss the matter. The article certainly needs a bit more development; I did what I could. Bdushaw 04:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Not altogether happy with the size of the image file for the WABAC machine...its too big. Bdushaw 04:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC) Fixed now, I think - using indexed color pallete. Bdushaw 05:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Renames

This since article displaced the link to Internet Archive#Wayback Machine, it would be courteous to fix the links that referred to the IA's WM.--75.36.173.201 03:55, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The article replaces the page that just redirected to Internet Archive. What links that refer to IA's WM are in error? Bdushaw 04:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a judgment call here: There are many (several hundred) links to IA WM because of linkrot and the list is likely to grow (see length of WLH). People traversing those links to get to the IA WM should not have to deal with this cartoon.--76.203.125.247 03:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I see - you mean the articles that link to "Wayback Machine". Humm... Those links should be fixed, true. As I mentioned above, I objected to the use of "Wayback Machine" to mean exclusively the IA WM - that just isn't correct; there is more to the term than that. E.g., someone running across a pop-culture reference to Wayback Machine and going to Wikipedia for what the term meant would likely be confused if he found himself at IA. I'll try to work to fix those links, although I note that such links were to a page that just redirected to Internet Archive, so they weren't quite right to begin with, seems to me. Bdushaw 07:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Waybackmachine3.png

Image:Waybackmachine3.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

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BetacommandBot 05:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Machine Name WABAC v. Wayback

Does anyone have concrete proof that the machine was actually called the WABAC, rather than the Wayback? That is, was the machine's name ever visible in the cartoons, or was the machine's name ever spelled out by Mr. Peabody? If not, then I think that the assumption that it was a WABAC (riffing on Univac or Eniac) is possibly a retroactive correlation. Doug 16:56, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

You are right to ask for a reference on this. Although given the choice between "WABAC" and "Wayback" within the context of 1959-1960 American culture, the term "wayback" is a more likely retroactive correlation, IMO. The answer would be found in a script for the show, if one could be found; one way to find the answer. We should find a reference for this, but I would object to removing or changing the "WABAC" explanation for the time being. See e.g., [1] 24.41.54.89 (talk) 09:09, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In the February 1963 issue of Bullwinkle Comics (from Gold Key), it is spelled WAY-BAC. Keep in mind that all text in the comic is capitalized. 24.220.198.165 (talk) 14:59, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

And in one of the article's links, "Wayback Machine comes to life in new home"[2], Kahle refers to the show's "more cleverly named 'Waybac Machine' which in turn was a reference to the Univac." With the information from that comic (any chance of a scanned image that doesn't violate licenses?), it does seem as if WAYBAC would make sense. Also, unfortunately 24.41.54.89's link is dead. --98.176.34.215 (talk) 02:09, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

The episode "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854 Balaclava) at 0:34 into the YouTube capture of the episode (which agrees with my DVD) as Mr.Peobody and his boy Sherman walk to the machine there is an arrow sign pointing to the machine that states "WAYBACK". I don't think that you can get more definitive that this. So how do we change "WAYBAC" to "WAYBACK" everywhere? ThomasHarrisGrantsPass (talk) 04:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Here is the youtube link [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u25-sU2ml8U ] to "The Charge of the Light Brigade" - the name "Wayback" is explicitly shown in a sign at the 34 second mark. Having created and nursed this particular article, I remind all that its present name "WABAC" was a consequence of a single editor changing around Wayback and WABAC out of frustration (my opinion/view of the situation) that the Internet archive links were being sent to the Cartoon Wayback. Changing the name of this particular article back to Wayback is not straightforward, since there are 1000's of wikilinks to Wayback from all those archived pages used as references for those 1000's of articles. But this does not change the historical fact that "Wayback" began with Peabody's Improbable History. Bdushaw (talk) 22:21, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

References

In the context of the cartoons, spelling is not consistent. It's a joke, and there is no attempt to maintain continuity. The notion of one (or more) "official" spellings is ridiculous. It's a low-budget comedy cartoon, and it's very silly. It's not rigorously encyclopedic. 2600:1000:B111:2ADA:D879:2CD2:3D75:620 (talk) 14:43, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Comment/Query

Who owns/controls the Wayback Machine? I don't know, but I think an ongoing history of the ownership of our history is crucial. Pls replace this with the info. Auralee (talk) 11:32, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Spam entry

Anonymous IP 75.144.183.21 inserted the following text block: In the influential Asinine skit, "The Wayback Machine," a character requests that his friend be his 'time-buddy' should he ever travel from the future and need to convince someone of his circumstances. He subsequently tests his friend's resolve regarding this promise, with hilarious results. (diff ) I view this as spam, certainly it is unreferenced. I've removed it. Bdushaw (talk) 00:42, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation proposal

It is standard to use disambiguation for topics that have the same name. I suggest to split the topics into seperate articles, and turn this link into a redirect to the more popular subject. Then, add a wp:hatnote, such as "for other uses see: ..." that will link to the rest of the articles. any objections? --Nezek (talk) 18:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't say that I exactly understand what you are proposing, but I think I object... The reason is that these are not separate topics. The cartoon "Wayback machine" was adopted by popular culture and, hence, adopted by the Internet Archives. Without the popular culture context for the Internet Archives Wayback machine, it rather lacks meaning. They are not different topics really, in the sense that "Mercury" can be the metal or the planet. Besides which, the article for Internet Archives already has a section on its Wayback machine, hence a separate article on Wayback machine is not justified. The term "Wayback machine" always comes back to Peabody and Sherman ... there seems to be an odd resistance to this historical fact. (We can't get in a Wayback machine to make it so that the Peabody and Sherman Wayback machine never existed...) It seems to me that one goal of this article is to provide the reason the Internet Archives Wayback machine has the meaning it does; to establish the bridge between the cartoon, the use of this term in popular culture, and the use of this term for the Internet Archives - that section was recently removed; I am working to restore it, having just now started a dialog with the section remover. Bdushaw (talk) 07:32, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The wayback machine and popular culture

I've restored the section discussing the use of the term wayback machine in popular culture, and restored its relation to the Internet archives wayback machine. This is an important section, giving a larger meaning to this article. I have, however, tried to simplify the section to reduce the number of references and remove the unencyclopedic list of examples. Happy to discuss the matter for the better development of this article. Bdushaw (talk) 08:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I've restored the section again. Would that people stop deleting it without discussion. Bdushaw (talk) 07:51, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 9 October 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus for the first move, but the second is strongly opposed. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 03:46, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

---

• WABAC machine → Wayback Machine (Peabody's Improbable History)
• Wayback Machine → Wayback Machine (website)

– The WP:COMMONNAME for this article appears to be "Wayback Machine", not "WABAC machine", a name shared by the website. Of course, making this page primary wouldn't make much sense either as the site gets much more interest. I suggest both be disambiguated instead, and a disambiguation page made at Wayback Machine. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 13:13, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• Neutral on 1st, but oppose 2nd, as the website has eclipsed its eponym in notability and interest. One is a fictional time machine from a 1960s animated series, and the other is a widely-used worldwide archive with billions of pages archiving both historical documents and basically the entire Internet. Paintspot Infez (talk) 15:43, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• Dismissing it as "a 1960s animated series" unfairly diminishes the notability of the original inspiration. Rocky and Bullwinkle is an extremely widely known show and I'd guess that more people as a subset of the general population would be familiar with it than a website used for research by a select niche._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 16:16, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• True, didn't mean to sound like I was dismissing it (especially as an animation fan myself)! I just meant, it seems like the website has more long-term notability and significance (and it currently gets 97.3% of the pageviews between the two). Paintspot Infez (talk) 18:50, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• As a historical note, this page was originally "Wayback machine", which caused quite a few problems wrt the internet archive site. There are many, many links from citations to the Wayback machine; BEWARE the knock-on consequences with any changes! Some time ago, someone, without any prior discussion, changed the name of this article to WABAC, to save Wayback machine for the internet archive and (save all the citation links). I was recently involved with a move issue similar to this one, and the policy is fairly clear - the dominant link is not disambiguated (The example I was concerned with was Montjuïc.) I support the move to Wayback Machine (Peabody's Improbable History) with a redirect from WABAC. I was never happy with WABAC, and the article has a link to a Peabody episode/youtube where Wayback is explicitly given by a sign on the wall. This article has a fairly tortured dance to justify WABAC (but this acronym was used in the more recent movie, apparently). But Wikipedia policy is fairly solidly in favor of keeping Wayback machine as it is, per the dominance of its numbers. The origin of "Wayback machine", the internet archive, is quite clearly this Peabody device - I oppose any effort that obscures that origin. Bdushaw (talk) 12:58, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Comment - it is, of course, a pun...Wayback and WABAC - the former indicating time from wayback, the latter being similar to INIAC, UNIVAC, etc. From my vantage point, I find it amusing that this pun from 60 years ago is causing havoc in the system of today... Bdushaw (talk) 13:07, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - Not many other things are called "Wayback Machine", meaning there is no reason to clarify a gd fan (talk) 19:25, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

We can make a disambigition page for it a gd fan (talk) 05:43, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with Paintspot, the website is the primary topic and a disambiguation page would be unnecessary (WP:TWODABS). The only question is whether the natural (WABAC) or parenthetical disambiguation is preferable for the fictional time machine. BegbertBiggs (talk) 16:22, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose It depends if what is used in the show is "WABAC" or "Wayback". If its wayback, then I agree with the change, but if it's WABAC, then I would leave each one as it currently is. 71.208.32.185 (talk) 21:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

• Agree/support/concur with the 1st, but oppose the second in its current form.

• Firstly, strongly oppose the use of WABAC in the title of any article. As previously noted and referenced, the "Charge of the Light Brigade" episode clearly shows a huge sign that says WAYBACK, a fact verifiable thanks to Youtube. The only use of WABAC seems to be in the recent film adaptation, which does not merit the 5 minutes of my attention it would take to review it in any detail. (MINUS 2 1/2 stars. Bad, but not bad enough to make it paradoxically good) Propose use of "WABAC" be limited to the minor (I would hope) subsection regarding the film (which should be at or near the bottom and IMO be little more than a footnote.

• Secondly, "Wayback Machine (Peabody's Improbable History)" Is acceptable, however my inner stickler would propose "The Wayback Machine (The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show: Peabody's Improbable History" possibly further specifying Peabody's... as being a nested story/nested show/show within a show to avoid it being misconstrued as a sub-title (such as "Doctor Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the BOMB" or as the name of an individual episode.

A nested story or story within a story is a literary device used by many writers to varying degrees of success in literature, TV, Film, Theatre (theater), even music, the most notable use in literature, IMHO, being the various tales, songs, and poems, some of which are historical, told by the principal characters to one another, often in the fictional languages of their world, (the construction of which being one of the legendary author's principal motivations for crafting the masterpiece in the first place) is indeed, if you haven't already deduced it, "The Lord of the Rings" by Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, to include "The Hobbit" from which the epic saga sprung, and was indeed begun prior to the completion of "The Hobbit" as well as the appendices following the epic's conclusion, which are primarily historical to the saga (the events they detail spanning distant past, near past, present, and future times from the point of view of its characters at the time of the events about which we have just finished reading) but which did not fit into the larger narrative. Apart from the various nested stories, the complete tale itself, including "The Hobbit" (as well as events occurring meanwhile to those experienced by its characters, but to which they are not privy) ultimately becomes a recursive or fractal story, (the principal story occurring within itself) written by the the very characters in it, intended as a chronicle of the events which the authors, their friends, and others who despite proximity to the authors, are connected to them by very few or even one single degrees of separation and whose experiences are relevant to the plot, regardless of whether those events are shared by the authors or any of their friends. This peculiar knowledge of events for which no one in the author's acquaintance were present is briefly addressed near the conclusion, as the composition of the very book which we are nearly finished reading is nearly finished being written. Merry or Pippin, I don't recall which, notices this oddity and questions Frodo about it, and his response iirc is a vague and IMO somewhat suspicious explanation which suggests the information in question he learned from Gandalf, who he concludes divined some of it magically, some by reading the memory of others, some by far-seeing, deduced some based on the information, clues, and hints available, and that the remaining bits not explained by the former, he simply made up himself, in something much closer to very educated guesses and/or assumptions than to simple imagination alone. To use Frodo's final title (sans lengthy sub-title) which he penned on the book's title page beneath many crossed-out attempts, "The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King" whether or not "The Hobbit" is included, is the single greatest work of fiction written in the modern English language in all of history. Beowulf doesn't count, being written using the Anglican and West Saxon dialects of Old English, which is entirely unrecognizable to modern-day native English speakers and scholars, and which uses an ancient alphabet that more closely resembles Ancient Greek than modern English. (it's Greek to me!) Agree, disagree, delete this entire erroneous and irrelevant section, it matters not to me...

A similar fractal story device is used in "The Neverending Story" in which the main character reads a book which turns out to be the very same "book" being "read" by the audience, and within which the main character discovers his experiences to which we have thus far been privy, and is shocked to find that the ancient tome he only just pilfered this morning indeed details said pilfering and incomprehensibly continues right up to the very present moment, reading in this book a description of himself reading about himself reading about himself. (oy..,)

• BUT I DIGRESS
• Thirdly, while the policy is not to disambiguate the dominant article, I strongly oppose the previous comment's presumption that one article's dominance over another is a sole function of the number of people who have clicked on a link to either article. While the internet archive may be a colossal achievement and the result of thousands of man-hours of work by many dedicated individuals, and undoubtedly thousands more processor-hours of automated work by many tireless computers and their programs to compile, organize index, and catalog all that information, and while it may indeed be a tool whose value has yet to be glimpsed or imagined, if I or anyone I've ever known with one or two possible (very young) exceptions, hear the words "Wayback Machine", we invariably picture Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman, even my young boys, having seen the recent film adaptation. I can think of exactly two people I've ever known who I'd imagine may have even heard of the wayback machine massive internet archive.

• THAT BEING SAID: My opposition to the 2nd point renaming "Wayback Machine" to "Wayback Machine (website)" is due to the total inadequacy of the term "website" to describe something of the monumental proportion of the wayback machine massive internet archive, if not in its present form, certainly of the finished project once completed and up-to-date as envisioned by its architects. The only comparable feat that comes to mind in the modern era is the Human Genome Project. Which, I wonder, will ultimately be more beneficial? The complete genome map with all (or as close to all as is possible) of our genes catalogued and their functions identified, or the entire collected knowledge, works of music and the arts, and the innermost thoughts, dreams, philosophies, achievements, and life events ever written, typed, vlogged, recorded, or tweeted (lol) in all of the recorded history of Mankind, catalogued, indexed, cross-referenced, annotated, and SEARCHABLE AT ANY TIME RIGHT IN YOUR POCKET? The former may unlock secrets of our human bodies that could dramatically extend the span and improve the quality of our very brief fleeing lives, but when it's finished, it's finished. We aren't likely to spontaneously start growing new chromosomes of genes which didn't previously exist, the Genome, while immense, is finite. The Human species however, will continue, perhaps not forever, but for a lot longer than most would imagine, with new discoveries, creations, and musings being added to the supreme, if not ultimate, archive every hour of every day. Perhaps it won't be so profound and important as my imagination paints it, and perhaps it will include every meaningless irrelevant bit of nonsense, triviality, troll-infested comments section or thread, and vile reprehensibility we can spew at each other, excessive both in volume and severity... Even so, if it preserves everything else as well, it will be worth it. Perhaps one day in the far-distant future, long after the last remnants of our people have left our solar system for good, in search of the nearest habitable world not yet toxified or irradiated by its inhabitants, or after we are totally extinct, just maybe in that far-distant time, another people from another world, maybe similar to us, maybe inconceivably different, will send interstellar vessels of explorers to catalogue every star system they can reach, or pioneer settlers with no home world to return to, who, like I believe we eventually must, embarked upon a journey spanning generations to find a new world to call home, and find the world we ruined and left behind, having healed itself over millenia. Just maybe beneath the ruins of a once-great metropolis, or more likely, beneath the Great Pyramid of Giza, built in our ancient past and likely to endure long after we are gone, just maybe within or beneath that eternal monument to our hubris they will detect the very last ember of Mankind, and discover there our great archive (which, naturally, includes the fully mapped genomes of not just ourselves but of every organism that lived on Earth since the invention of the gene sequencer, clinging for life to the slowly fading remains of a power source which in our incurable hubris we reckoned to be self sustaining for all time, or all the time of which our minds could conceive. A far-fetched fantasy I know, but no matter how dismal or wretched the world gets, I will hold on to the hope that day will come, that perhaps we will be remembered, and those far-distant future explorers or pioneers will recover and study our grand archive, everything we were which we could preserve, and they will learn and benefit from both our wisdom and our mistakes. Perhaps then, even if they never develop the technology to resurrect us or our millions of species from the genetic data stored in our great archive, if they learn about us, and from us, and we will live on in their culture's memories for many thousand more years, and thus our existence will have been worth more than the sum of our achievements less the sum of our failings. That's the hope the massive undertaking the creation of this archive gives me.

• Forgive me for waxing poetic and that overmuch. By way of recognition in small token of the staggering potential it represents, I would propose the second change be amended from "Wayback Machine (website)" to "Wayback Machine: Comprehensive Archive of Mankind" or something if not quite so bold, at least with a bit more dignity, gravitas, or importance than "website".

• Feel free to delete what you like as the loquacious ramblings of an old fool.50.5.132.251 (talk) 03:48, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Neutral on the first, strong oppose on the second. I don't know enough about Mr. Peabody and Sherman to accurately say one way or the other. From what others are saying, it appears Wayback is used more than WABAC. As for the second, based on page view and how many pages link to the Wayback Machine (as in, the Internet Archive) I feel like renaming it would cause issues. I think the little disambiguator at the top that currently sits on the page ("For the time machine from Peabody's Improbable History, see...") is fine enough. In my experience, most pages where the most popular subject eclipses other pages with the same name sit at the title (in this case, "Wayback Machine") with a disambiguator at the top. CAMERAwMUSTACHE (talk) 17:52, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"In popular culture"

This section with this title has been removed and replaced twice. It was recently pointed out to me that the source of the problem may well be this title, which apparently is a lightening rod for problems. It seems many editors don't like this popularity-centered approach. My change to the title was to both alleviate (fend off) this problem, as well as get to the heart of the matter which was indicated by the new title. The new title may well be awkward - a better approach than reversion would be to refine the title to something more succinct. Bdushaw (talk) 21:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)