Comment by gergles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gergles | Hacker News Reader

From (2): > We all hate paywalls, but an HN without NYT, WSJ, The Economist, The New Yorker etc. would obviously suck so much worse that anyone who doesn't get that doesn't get HN.

This statement is up for debate. I don't get why you continue to declare this like it is settled. Paywalls do limit access to content, no matter how easy or numerous the workarounds. In my opinion, the site suffers when paywalled links are posted. I don't think it's a just-so story that NYT/Economist/WSJ links are so important to HN that we simply must suffer their existence.

Declaring discussion of paywalls thoughtcrime is not good for the community. Suggesting people who can flag should not flag because they should figure out which of the 18 different workarounds they can use to read content is also not appropriate.

> Just so it's clear: this is a sure way to lose your flagging privileges on HN

Wow. So flagging an article that you can't read (by design), is a way to lose the ability to flag. What exactly are you supposed to flag, then? If you can't flag "this page just asks me for a credit card", then what exactly can you flag?

It's been pointed out to me that I shouldn't have said "anyone who doesn't get that doesn't get HN" because it sounds dismissive. So I'd word that differently now. The underlying point stands: many of the best articles posted to HN come from these publications. Wiping all that out—which a strong anti-paywall rule would do—would be disastrous to the intellectual curiosity that is core to HN.

> they should figure out which of the 18 different workarounds they can use

Workarounds are a nuisance but this exaggerates it. Overwhelmingly these articles come from a small number of sites that have the same few workarounds. Most people have internalized them long ago (or installed software to do so), and for anyone who hasn't, it's fine to share info like "open an incognito window" or "google the article title" in the threads. What's not fine is to turn every thread into the same old argument about paywalls.

> what exactly can you flag

You should flag things that shouldn't be on HN in the first place. But a New Yorker article on, say, Nabokov and butterflies obviously should be on HN. (Obviously, that is, given the mandate and history of the site.) Articles on offbeat topics that lead outside HN's core grooves are the most endangered species here. We need more of those. Flagging them is an abuse of flagging. Sometimes people do that because of paywalls, even when the paywall has a trivial workaround like an incognito window. That's what I was referring to.

Intellectual diversity is the founding value of this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. That's what I meant re "getting" HN. But I'll try to be more helpful than dismissive when communicating it.

"I don't get why you continue to declare this like it is settled."

Because they run the site and, I imagine, are representing the broader group who ultimately make decisions about it?

I don't get why you continue to declare this like it is settled.

It's good to be the king.

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