Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please
The first post on the page is mostly a TLDR or a link to an alternative article instead of a real comment. For example the current #1 post : Samsung to Permanently Discontinue Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone (wsj.com) - https://gyazo.com/440858bfcc2f94d912a087ca2ef7ce26
There will always be a discussion about paywalled articles and or alternative sources, which takes the discussion away from the topic and there is a high chance that this will be a top comment ( because of upvotes).
The current #1 link and #7 link are currently unusable to me : https://gyazo.com/578b105ce67f9b6d14cefe0dfeb43efb
The trick with bypassing it through the web doesn't work for me anymore ( and multiple others). This was good in the past, but not anymore.
An alternative like automaticly hiding articles from wsj.com would be nice, but i think it's more effectively to just ban the domain? Because it has no use for many HN-readers.
Suggested alternative: Add (paywall) automaticly to the link
Please discuss or give your opinion?
65 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadI'm one of the people affected; I am already shut out of the discussion, and when I am not on a fast unmetered broadband connection, the wait and the advertising thrown at me instead of the content that was promised feels like I am being punished for following HN links, every time.
I'm not suggesting it is a perfect solution, but a heads-up would be strictly better than what we have now.
(I don't much like the idea of copying paywalled content elsewhere, as suggested by other commenters - there are obvious legality issues, and also it seems morally dubious at best; the content provider has made the decision that they don't want non-paying customers to read their stuff, and however we feel about this, we ought to respect it - just as my decision not to pay for some kinds of content (and hence not receive that content) should be respected as a valid choice instead of being punished.)
Why shouldn't the burden be on the reader to jump into incognito (i.e. non-plugin) mode to read an article? Virtually everyone on HN has the technical chops to switch between an incognito browser instance and whatever they're using to read HN.
I don't agree with this position.
If a blog has paid content that is only available for some people, that is similar to this discussion. Not your example in my opinion
Let's also extend this to companies that prevent those with content blockers from viewing their pages. Forbes is one, and techcrunch is another. Techcrunch doesn't block content, but their site UI is messed up enough that when content blockers are used that it makes their site unusable.
I personally agree with the current HN paywall policy. If the Google workaround doesn't work, then WSJ will get banned from Google, which is a far harsher penalty than getting banned from HN.
The question boils down to whether the paywall is leaky enough. The "web" option, which helps the user find the article via Google because the WSJ paywall let's through the Google-referer, still works for me and many others, but apparently, not for other users. That's a strange technical quirk. I've tried emulating it on desktop vs. mobile, and using a VPN for different parts of the world, and the Google-referer-workaround still works fine for me.
So why can't some users get it to work? Could they be using a plugin that blocks the referer? Is the use of such a plugin enough of a common-case to block good journalism for the rest of the users on HN?
Paywalled mass-media articles (e.g. WSJ) are very rarely worth submitting. Articles in paywalled journals (e.g. Nature) where the abstract is accessible may well be worth it. But it comes down to judgement.
Finally, I agree that (for the type of topics that HN concerns itself with) free access to information should be encouraged.
The BBC do a similar thing with their football news roundup from the daily papers with "<short overview> <paper name> - subscription required"
This doesn't stop people who do subscribe to the site from reading the content linked to and gives a heads up for people who don't.
The Samsung story isn't exclusive to the WSJ and there are plenty of other free to access news sites that would have been better for the submission. If we ban paywalled sites entirely it would prevent submissions of exclusive content (which could be an interview or journal)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680419
The mods allowed that to be the top comment in the thread for a while to help loop in people who couldn't otherwise read the content.
I'd like to also emphasize that sometimes paywalled sources are the only sources. In this specific case, WSJ was the first source to break the news on the Theranos lawsuit story I posted. I subscribe to WSJ and I received the notification when the article went up, but I looked for other sources before posting. It's not uncommon for WSJ to be the first or only source for new articles.
I would be in favor of adding "Paywall" to these links as well, but I also think that banning paywalled sources is too inflexible.
And the comments on HN seem to be more coupled to an event than any given particular article, meta-metadiscussion aside.
HN already replaces article URLs with better ones, so the above will work through the old process with an additional parameter for what's considered "better" for HN.
I don't think it's something i as a developer would want to see as a solution ( just my 2 cents)
A summary will also help with paywalled articles.
I do agree that inaccessible sites are of little value for discussions and would gladly have a visual indicator of these sites to avoid the click, close, flag response.
There is a plugin for Chrome that makes that easy: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switche...
According to me, this should be a top discussion. But the ranking algorithm seems to be way off, like we have been punished in the algorithm.
Any thoughts what this could be?
Seems reasonable, but i don't think it true ( considering Ask HN: are just texts in the front of the title).
Edit: It's definatly not in the algorithm, it's a manual ban of some sort :)
The paywall issue in particular has received plenty of discussion already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989.
So this discussion is great - lets make sure everyone takes the time to give it thought. But after those thoughts have had time to percolate, the actions of the community will self-correct. Or not.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
Note that "incognito window" is one of the "standard workarounds" 'dang mentions in that thread.
If a group of people at a party were talking about a book you had not read or a movie you had not seen, would that be breaking your party experience?
Of course not. You'd go converse with a different group that was talking about some other book or movie, or talking about sports or something.
You can do the same thing here. You have 30 submissions on the front page alone to choose from, and even more if you can bring yourself to hit the "more" link at the bottom of the page.
And unlike the book/movie discussion at a party, if you do go into the comments on an article you have not read you are unlikely to get any spoilers that will ruin it for you if you do later find the article somewhere you can read.
> An alternative like automaticly hiding articles from wsj.com would be nice, but i think it's more effectively to just ban the domain? Because it has no use for many HN-readers.
Every highly technical article discussed on HN is of no use to many HN readers. Do you think we should ban those, too?
Also, the utility of HN submissions is usually in the comments, not the article itself. The comments are usually quite useful even without reading the article. The article is merely a launching point.
Well in order to properly comment and have a meaningful discussion the link should be read at first place.
Your analogy is broken, what people are doing at your party is discussing a movie they've only seen the trailer of.
If a technical article is here, i choose if it's interesting to me and upvote it accordingly. If i can't access content, then i have not choosen. The website has chosen for me and i don't think it fits in the spirit of HN.
I have not said to just ban the domain. I have said to consider it and my last sentence was to discuss it. I even added an alternative ( like add paywall to it), because it's clearly a problem for a lot of people.
Please don't change my words
Not really, but, while snappy, that's not really a good depiction of what's happening here.
A better analogy might be groups of people at a large exhibition discussing what's happening in the various booths. You're welcomed to go look in the relevant booth then join the discussion. Most of the booths you can just wander up to and take a look inside, but sometimes you walk over and poke your head in and the booth bouncer looks at your visitor badge, slaps you in the face to attract your attention and demands you fill out a bunch of forms and pay them before they'll let you in.
The wasted walk and the slap in the face kinda ruin your experience, so you ask if people discussing the slapping sort of booths might maybe warn people first, but they suggest you just put up with the slaps and move on if you don't want to pay up front for everything.
How does that make you feel?
The WSJ paywall is not easily bypassable. The usual techniques to bypass paywalls are inconsistent with WSJ. Sometimes opening the 'web' link in an incognito window works, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work, there's no way to get to the article.
The WSJ paywall should not be treated like the NYT paywall. It's a different animal, and it shouldn't be allowed here because it fails the easily-bypassable test.