5 ms·

> By the way, a pet peeve of mine right now is that reporters covering court cases never seem to simply paste the link to the online PDF decision/ruling for us

> By the way, a pet peeve of mine right now is that reporters covering court cases never seem to simply paste the link to the online PDF decision/ruling for us all to read right in the story. I presume that this falls under the same consideration as direct links to science papers in articles that are covering those releases. Far as I can tell, the central tactic for lowering bounce rate and increasing 'engagement' is to link out sparsely, and, ideally, not at all. I write articles on new research papers, and always provide a direct link to the PDF,; but nearly all major sites fail to do this, even when the paper turns out to be at Arxiv, or otherwise directly available (instead of having been an exclusive preview offered to the publication by the researchers, as often happens at more prominent publications such as Ars and The Register). In regard to the few publishers that do provide legal PDFs in articles, the solution I see most often is that the publication hosts the PDF itself, keeping the reader in their ecosystem. However, since external PDFs can get revised and taken down, this could also be a countermeasure against that.

kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
Articles about patent infringement are similarly annoying when the patent numbers aren't cited. This is basic 21st century journalism 101. We aren't limited to what fits on a broadside anymore. We need an AI driven extension that will insert the links. This would be a nice addition to Kagi as they could be trusted to not play SEO shenanigans.
- GCUMstlyHarmls 1y ago
  I think they're called broadsheets unless you're in the headline!
- baq 1y ago
  If news on the web was journalism instead of attention seeking for ad revenue you’d be right. Agree on the extension idea, except I’m not sure I want to see the original sensationalized content anyway. Might as well have the bot rewrite the piece in a dry style.
  - TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
    > If news on the web was journalism instead of attention seeking for ad revenue you’d be right. That’s painting with an overly broad brush. Nevertheless, the news was relying on ads long before most people knew the word “Internet”, but there were far fewer channels to place ads back then, so in some respects news and media organizations had a captive audience in advertisers. Mass adoption of television was effectively made possible because of advertising money.
bawolff 1y ago
I think one of the lessons of Wikipedia, is the more you link out the more they come back. People come to your site because it is useful. They are perfectly capable of leaving by themselves. They don't need a link to do so. Having links to relavent information that attracts readers back is well worth the cost of people following links out of your site.
- travoc 1y ago
  Wikipedia eventually failed.
  - kelvinjps10 1y ago
    What do you mean? It's one of the most popular sites
    - tyingq 1y ago
      I won't call it dead, but it is declining. Their various sources of traffic are now regurgitating Wikipedia Content (and other 3rd party sources) via uncited/unlinked AI "blurbs"...instead of presenting snippets of Wikipedia contents with links to Wikipedia to read more. It's not the only reason their traffic is declining, but it seems like a big one.
      - WD-42 1y ago
        Who cares if the traffic is declining? I don’t find Wikipedia useful because it gets lots of visits, I find it useful for the information it contains.
        jowea 1y ago
        The problem has more to do with editors. The theory is that less visits leads to less editors in the long run.
        1y ago
AlienRobot 1y ago
It's depressing how much of the web didn't work the way it was supposed to. Attention is centralized on news websites because news can be posted on social media feeds every day. Those news articles never link to other websites due to arbitrary SEO considerations. Google's pagerank which was once based on backlinks can't function if the only links come from social media feeds in 3 websites and none of them come from actual websites. On top of it all, nobody even knows for sure if those SEO considerations matter or not because it's all on Google's whim and can change without notice.
- roywiggins 1y ago
  It's worse now with Instagram and other video apps that don't even let you link out. "link in bio" is killing the web.
- ddtaylor 1y ago
  The web works fine it's just PACER and stuff that is garbage because there is no competition in the trash people create for the government and public apathy (or corruption, take your pick) is high.
chneu 1y ago
I don't read science/tech articles from major news outlets for this reason. They NEVER link to the papers and I always have to spend a few minutes searching for it. This doesn't happen nearly as often on smaller sci/tech news outlets. When it does a quick email usually gets the link put in the article within a few hours.
- tomcam 1y ago
  Would you mind naming or even… linking to a few such outlets?
  - crabmusket 1y ago
    Here's a recent example from 404 Media: https://www.404media.co/this-stunning-image-of-the-sun-could-unlock-mysterious-physics/ https://www.404media.co/this-stunning-image-of-the-sun-could...
    - tomcam 1y ago
      Fantastic, thanks.
mike_hearn 1y ago
They didn't cited papers directly even before the web. It's not a bounce or engagement issue. Journalists don't make it easy for you to access primary sources because of a mentality and culture issue. They see themselves as gatekeepers of information and convince themselves that readers can't handle the raw material. From their perspective, making it easy to read primary sources is pure downside: • Most readers don't care/have time. • Of the tiny number who do, the chances of them finding a mistake in your reporting or in the primary source is high. • It makes it easier to mis-represent the source to bolster the story. Eliminating links to sources is pure win: people care a lot about mistakes but not about finding them, so raising the bar for the few who do is ideal.
- skylurk 1y ago
  What distinguishes journalists from storytellers?
  - rurban 1y ago
    Journalists have an agenda. And they are not independent.
- gnz11 1y ago
  That’s not how it works at large news orgs. Journalists will enter their articles in a CMS. From there it will get put into a workflow and seen by one or several editors who will edit things for clarity, grammar, style, etc. Links will get added at some point by an editor or automated system. There is no cabal of journalists scheming to keep links out of articles because “culture”.
  - molf 1y ago
    If there were a culture of always including the original source, or journalists massively advocating to include the original source, then surely the CMS would cater to it. I think it's safe to draw the conclusion that most journalists don't care about it.
    - 1y ago
mbs159 1y ago
When it comes to providing direct links to PDFs of scientific papers, you can often run into paywall issues. Court decisions / rulings on the other hand do not belong to any publishers, so it's a different story

kevin_thibedeau 1y ago

Articles about patent infringement are similarly annoying when the patent numbers aren't cited. This is basic 21st century journalism 101. We aren't limited to what fits on a broadside anymore. We need an AI driven extension that will insert the links. This would be a nice addition to Kagi as they could be trusted to not play SEO shenanigans.

GCUMstlyHarmls 1y ago
I think they're called broadsheets unless you're in the headline!
baq 1y ago
If news on the web was journalism instead of attention seeking for ad revenue you’d be right. Agree on the extension idea, except I’m not sure I want to see the original sensationalized content anyway. Might as well have the bot rewrite the piece in a dry style.
- TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
  > If news on the web was journalism instead of attention seeking for ad revenue you’d be right. That’s painting with an overly broad brush. Nevertheless, the news was relying on ads long before most people knew the word “Internet”, but there were far fewer channels to place ads back then, so in some respects news and media organizations had a captive audience in advertisers. Mass adoption of television was effectively made possible because of advertising money.

bawolff 1y ago

I think one of the lessons of Wikipedia, is the more you link out the more they come back. People come to your site because it is useful. They are perfectly capable of leaving by themselves. They don't need a link to do so. Having links to relavent information that attracts readers back is well worth the cost of people following links out of your site.

travoc 1y ago
Wikipedia eventually failed.
- kelvinjps10 1y ago
  What do you mean? It's one of the most popular sites
  - tyingq 1y ago
    I won't call it dead, but it is declining. Their various sources of traffic are now regurgitating Wikipedia Content (and other 3rd party sources) via uncited/unlinked AI "blurbs"...instead of presenting snippets of Wikipedia contents with links to Wikipedia to read more. It's not the only reason their traffic is declining, but it seems like a big one.
    - WD-42 1y ago
      Who cares if the traffic is declining? I don’t find Wikipedia useful because it gets lots of visits, I find it useful for the information it contains.
      - jowea 1y ago
        The problem has more to do with editors. The theory is that less visits leads to less editors in the long run.
        1y ago

AlienRobot 1y ago

It's depressing how much of the web didn't work the way it was supposed to. Attention is centralized on news websites because news can be posted on social media feeds every day. Those news articles never link to other websites due to arbitrary SEO considerations. Google's pagerank which was once based on backlinks can't function if the only links come from social media feeds in 3 websites and none of them come from actual websites. On top of it all, nobody even knows for sure if those SEO considerations matter or not because it's all on Google's whim and can change without notice.

roywiggins 1y ago
It's worse now with Instagram and other video apps that don't even let you link out. "link in bio" is killing the web.
ddtaylor 1y ago
The web works fine it's just PACER and stuff that is garbage because there is no competition in the trash people create for the government and public apathy (or corruption, take your pick) is high.

chneu 1y ago

I don't read science/tech articles from major news outlets for this reason. They NEVER link to the papers and I always have to spend a few minutes searching for it. This doesn't happen nearly as often on smaller sci/tech news outlets. When it does a quick email usually gets the link put in the article within a few hours.

tomcam 1y ago
Would you mind naming or even… linking to a few such outlets?
- crabmusket 1y ago
  Here's a recent example from 404 Media: https://www.404media.co/this-stunning-image-of-the-sun-could-unlock-mysterious-physics/ https://www.404media.co/this-stunning-image-of-the-sun-could...
  - tomcam 1y ago
    Fantastic, thanks.

mike_hearn 1y ago

They didn't cited papers directly even before the web. It's not a bounce or engagement issue. Journalists don't make it easy for you to access primary sources because of a mentality and culture issue. They see themselves as gatekeepers of information and convince themselves that readers can't handle the raw material. From their perspective, making it easy to read primary sources is pure downside: • Most readers don't care/have time. • Of the tiny number who do, the chances of them finding a mistake in your reporting or in the primary source is high. • It makes it easier to mis-represent the source to bolster the story. Eliminating links to sources is pure win: people care a lot about mistakes but not about finding them, so raising the bar for the few who do is ideal.

skylurk 1y ago
What distinguishes journalists from storytellers?
- rurban 1y ago
  Journalists have an agenda. And they are not independent.
gnz11 1y ago
That’s not how it works at large news orgs. Journalists will enter their articles in a CMS. From there it will get put into a workflow and seen by one or several editors who will edit things for clarity, grammar, style, etc. Links will get added at some point by an editor or automated system. There is no cabal of journalists scheming to keep links out of articles because “culture”.
- molf 1y ago
  If there were a culture of always including the original source, or journalists massively advocating to include the original source, then surely the CMS would cater to it. I think it's safe to draw the conclusion that most journalists don't care about it.
  - 1y ago

mbs159 1y ago

When it comes to providing direct links to PDFs of scientific papers, you can often run into paywall issues. Court decisions / rulings on the other hand do not belong to any publishers, so it's a different story