The Internet Archive has both curated and non-curated collections. Right now the Wayback Machine doesn't have any curation, but that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way.
However, in this situation, the collaboration between Wikipedia and the Wayback may be what you had in mind. We're working with Wikipedia to make sure all external links from Wikipedia articles are backed up in the Wayback Machine, and there's a Wikipedia bot going around adding these links to articles.
How easily would it be to find the linked to stackoverflow answer on the archive if ever stackoverflow were to vanish from the net one day?
There was also a wikipedia article linked on HN recently about a certain mainframe terminal, and a spreadsheet program that make use of a special capability of that terminal. Said article was at risk of being deleted from wikipedia because they deemed it "original research".
Again, how easily could one find such an article within the archive?
Ah, now you want to talk about discovery! It so happens that I'm building a search engine for the Wayback Machine. But it's true that discovery for it is never going to be that great until the search engines that people commonly use index the Wayback, which is probably never.
I dunno why you seem to treat those as two separate issues.
The way i see it, one feeds into the other. Wikipedia and other wikis have a repuration for being time/attention sinks, this because you can follow one article to another to another.
Search don't do that. It may or may not barf up what you are looking for if fed the right terms, not much beyond that.
Maybe what i have in mind is something akin to wikiquote but for topics rather than persons. So that this posting by Adler can be filed under zip, gzip, zlib and whatsnot, and people can find it to go alongside the "encyclopedic" description of either of the technologies.
I don't think they're separate issues, and I totally agree that they feed into each other. I'm just having a hard time figuring out what this HN discussion is about.
However, in this situation, the collaboration between Wikipedia and the Wayback may be what you had in mind. We're working with Wikipedia to make sure all external links from Wikipedia articles are backed up in the Wayback Machine, and there's a Wikipedia bot going around adding these links to articles.