[dang]

YC has a long tradition of soliciting applications in particular areas—see the links below. Of course, founders with other ideas are entirely welcome to apply.

Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=250704 - July 2008 (380 comments)

A New Experiment: The RFS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=766703 - Aug 2009 (57 comments)

YCRFS 1: The Future of Journalism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=766796 - Aug 2009 (56 comments)

YCRFS 2: New Paths Through Product Space - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=768425 - Aug 2009 (21 comments)

YCRFS 3: Things Built on Twitter - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=904193 - Oct 2009 (67 comments)

YCRFS 4: New Ways to Use Live Video - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=904195 - Oct 2009 (19 comments)

RFS 5: Development on Handhelds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=950781 - Nov 2009 (44 comments)

YCRFS 6: iPad Applications - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1160140 - March 2010 (106 comments)

YCRFS 7: Applications of Facebook Instant Personalization - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1638004 - Aug 2010 (29 comments)

Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3491542 - Jan 2012 (664 comments)

New Requests for Startups - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8308666 - Sept 2014 (390 comments)

Requests for Startups Refreshed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12592619 - Sept 2016 (124 comments)

Request for Startups: Water - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13311257 - Jan 2017 (224 comments)

[spacebanana7]

Thanks for the links, some of product ideas in the 08-10 threads make for interesting reads.

[yellow_lead]

A lot of these links in the original submissions are broken. Would be nice if they could be fixed or archived. I.e:

https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs5.html

[dang]

Ok, I've pinned archive links to the top of those threads.

[ignoramous]

Hi Dang, how about an archive mirror link next to flag for links older than, say, 30d? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766547

[dang]

How can it be automated in a reliable way? Archive links don't necessarily take you to a readable copy of the article. Someone has to check that, no?

[ignoramous]

Not sure if the Wayback Machine supports API-based on-demand archival, but they do partner with firms like Cloudflare to auto archive websites: https://archive.is/O9SAO

There's availability API but it won't tell us if the archived webpage does indeed display content (say, if it was behind a paywall or cookie banner): https://archive.org/help/wayback_api.php

archive.is, which breaks past some of the paywalls, apparently (haven't tried it myself) supports the Memento protocol: https://github.com/palewire/archiveis/blob/master/archiveis/...

[dang]

Thanks, that's interesting!

> There's availability API but it won't tell us if the archived webpage does indeed display content (say, if it was behind a paywall or cookie banner

Right - that's the problem. It takes a human to tell if the archive link is worth anything.

I do want to do something better with this someday (someyear?) - most likely a way for community members to submit and vet archive links, and then (if so) an "archive" button in the detail bar to point to it.

[yellow_lead]

Thanks!