Deleting items from Web Archive
Internet Archive lets you save web pages under "Web Archive", it's like bookmarks which is archived & public, anyone can see what you've saved under "Web Archive". I had saved an article & wanted to see what "Save to My Web Archive" does so I tried it. I assumed whatever it is I'll be able to delete it but you cannot delete items under "Web Archive".
I sent an email to info@archive.org
asking about this & they replied:
Items cannot be removed from "Web Archive" at this time.
We expect to allow removal but I have no ETA as to when that might happen.
The only option was to delete my account. I read the "How do I delete my account?" page & proceeded to delete my account. Later, I signed up for another account with screen name "notandinus" because apparently screen names cannot be re-used. There was no information regarding this on that help page. I did however got my uploaded items back in my account, maybe they're tied to the email address.
If you want to delete items from your "Web Archive" & retain the screen name then first change the screen name to a long random string & then delete the account. Later, create an account using the same email address & screen name. You should get back your uploaded items & everything from your "Web Archive" will be gone.
Suggestion to the Internet Archive:
- Warn users when they use the "Save to My Web Archive" feature for the first time.
- Add "screen names cannot be re-used" to the "How do I delete my account?" page.
Of course, I tried adding the text in 2nd point myself but looks like
you cannot edit help.archive.org
pages so I sent them an email with both
suggestions. Account management on help.archive.org
is another mess.