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Comment by RevRal | Hacker News Reader

Single page: http://www.slate.com/id/2250793/pagenum/all/

Do we really need these for every multi-page article? I mean, on this one in particular you read down to the bottom of the first page and see:

  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | SINGLE PAGE

Clicking SINGLE PAGE even puts us at the correct position in the single-paged article! When I saw the link though, I couldn't help laughing to myself and thinking, "I should be one of those karma dudes who posts 'Single Page:' as a comment." Then I checked out the comment thread and here it is.

Who votes these up? Don't we all know by now that clicking the "Print this article" or "Single page" link on a multi-page article will transport us to that magical single page?

(In case you're wondering, I didn't vote the parent down.)

I hear you, but I think it's more protest/irony than information. Page-breaking is a cheap trick to inflate page views, borne of the same low cunning that gives us items priced at $2.98 instead of $3.

When I'm reading HN on a phone or other high-latency environment I appreciate saving the extra roundtrip.

Fair enough, thanks for answering my question. FWIW, I wouldn't have made my comment if I couldn't have made it (I hope!) a little humorous. I'm in an especially comment-y mood tonight, and I've often wondered why these "Single page" posts are so popular and if they stuck out to anyone else. I find the automatic-karma-race nature of such posts (analogous to the classic xkcd new-comic-insta-submissions on reddit) somewhat intriguing. That is, such posters are obviously being helpful, but in the back of your mind you can't help but question their motivation.

I'd prefer that the submitters submit the full page stories or printer friendly versions as the submission. Posting the single page link in the comments is friendly. I also check the comments on HN before clicking the submission link, as there is often a full page link, which always makes me happy. (The comments also tell me whether if I should take the time to actually check the submission out)

I kind of had the feeling that someone is jumping to the karma conclusion. Woe. Woe, I dare to say.

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Addendum:

Oh, and if I said I didn't appreciate the karma, I'd be lying. The +3 boost this is giving me puts me at 660, and I'm annoyed when my karma isn't divisible by 5. (I'm serious)

Otherwise I don't really care. In fact, I often post riskier comments if my overall karma isn't divisible by 5. If I was at 901, and someone somewhere downvoted me to 900, it would make me happy.

So please don't screw up my karma, you'll make me sad.

The "karma" comment was a joke, one that had the possibility of having some truth to it. I didn't assume any ill will :)

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Addendum: I do appreciate that "divisible by 5" quirk you mentioned :).

My quirk seems to be that I don't really consider my comments complete until I've reread and edited them something like 5-10 times. I thinks that's why it makes me kind of sad when my shortest comments (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283979 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1219118) are the ones that get the most upvotes... I spend so little time on those comments, as compared to one like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1284130.

It's fine.

I also remembered that I hate touching my mouse, and I prefer to keep my ring finger on "page down" when reading on a computer. Having to physically lift my hand, move it to the mouse, find the cursor on the screen, aim it at "next page" or whatever then click, and if I misfire... start over. This really breaks my flow and is quite disruptive.

I know I'm not the only one who cares about stuff like this.

I'd prefer that the submitters submit the full page stories or printer friendly versions as the submission.

But in this case the printer friendly version omits the sound clips, which are what make the article.

Single page doesn't omit.

Sorry, you're correct; I must have left NoScript on :P

Sorry, that was an oversight on my part.

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