Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#31

Post by NicoJuicy » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:40 AM UTC

anilgulecha wrote: post #30

I propose that paywalled article be allowed, but as soon as a comment recommends a non-paywalled article for the same story, we switch to that. 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 like the idea in theory, but in practise it always takes some time till the link gets replaced and it's manual labor for HN.

I don't think it's something i as a developer would want to see as a solution ( just my 2 cents)

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#32

Post by amelius » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:41 AM UTC

I'd like to see more summaries on HN. I'm often reading HN on my phone, and the connection is often too slow to read the actual article.

A summary will also help with paywalled articles.

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#33

Post by darklajid » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:45 AM UTC

And ban quora while you're at it? Ah, wishful thinking of course.

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.

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#34

Post by NicoJuicy » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:46 AM UTC

I don't think they want us to have this discussion :) - http://imgur.com/a/GdMkz

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?

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#35

Post by chillydawg » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:49 AM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #34

I don't think they want us to have this discussion :) - http://imgur.com/a/GdMkz 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?

Ask HN posts probably have a higher bar as they're often lower quality or less interesting than news?

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#36

Post by NicoJuicy » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:50 AM UTC

chillydawg wrote: post #35

NicoJuicy wrote: post #34

I don't think they want us to have this discussion :) - http://imgur.com/a/GdMkz 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?

Ask HN posts probably have a higher bar as they're often lower quality or less interesting than news?

I thought the "older" published algorithm was only an algorithm with sum of upvotes on the topic (and comments) with a time decay.

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 :)

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#37

Post by cooper12 » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:54 AM UTC

danso wrote: post #10

I disagree with banning sites that have leaky paywalls. Sites that do good journalism deserve the pageviews. We shouldn't incentivize blogspam just because it's convenient. In the case of the WSJ, they were the outlet that did the investigative work that broke Theranos, among many other stories. The question boils down to whether the paywall is leaky enough. The "web" option, which helps the user find the article via…

An alternative is to plug the url into archive.is, which I've found to always work for me.

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#38

Post by codingdave » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:56 AM UTC

Banning seems extreme. We have mechanisms on HN to self-moderate -- If you do not like paywalled articles, do not upvote them or post them. But as long as other people are posting and upvoting, it means some part of this community feels they have value.

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.

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#39

Post by retox » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:58 AM UTC

How about a host filter in the user options? At least that way people with a subscription can see the link.

Re: Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please

#40

Post by cooper12 » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 11:59 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #32

I'd like to see more summaries on HN. I'm often reading HN on my phone, and the connection is often too slow to read the actual article. A summary will also help with paywalled articles.

I think a submitter of paywalled content should make sure a summary/excerpt exists on the site linked, or they should include one themselves. Sounds like a fair compromise between not being able to link and not being able to read, while still stimulating some discussion.