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I'd like to see linking to paywalled sites discouraged, but banning them might be too inflexible. Perhaps a change to the submission form that suggests that the

I'd like to see linking to paywalled sites discouraged, but banning them might be too inflexible. Perhaps a change to the submission form that suggests that the submitter looks for alternative sources first, and appends "(paywalled)" to the title if they opt to proceed. 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.

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
I like this suggestion as a pragmatic compromise. There could even be consideration of weighting paywalled articles slightly lower in the general hn algorithm.
grahamel 10y ago
I agree. 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)
darreld 10y ago
I agree with this proposal. Appending "(paywalled)" to the title at least lets me know this info exists and, if it's something I'm likely to be interested in, I can go to google or some other web source.
vmorgulis 10y ago
Maybe a [paywall] tag in the title could help.
dsacco 10y ago
I agree with this. I'm the submitter of one the OP's example links from yesterday. I was aware of the impact the paywall would have, which is why I tried to helpfully summarize in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680419 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.
tomjen3 10y ago
If it is a paywalled article in a journal, just submit the sci-hub link.

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago

I like this suggestion as a pragmatic compromise. There could even be consideration of weighting paywalled articles slightly lower in the general hn algorithm.

grahamel 10y ago

I agree. 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)

darreld 10y ago

I agree with this proposal. Appending "(paywalled)" to the title at least lets me know this info exists and, if it's something I'm likely to be interested in, I can go to google or some other web source.

vmorgulis 10y ago

Maybe a [paywall] tag in the title could help.

dsacco 10y ago

I agree with this. I'm the submitter of one the OP's example links from yesterday. I was aware of the impact the paywall would have, which is why I tried to helpfully summarize in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680419 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.

tomjen3 10y ago

If it is a paywalled article in a journal, just submit the sci-hub link.