Hacker News Reader

Comment by creatonez | Hacker News Reader

The HN rules are that paywalled content can be posted only if it's trivially bypassable via a free tool. The NYTimes links work on fresh IP addresses as part of a free allowance for new readers, which is why the proxy-based archive website archive.today is able to get through. I'm not a big fan of this being allowed, but there is some thought to it at least, they aren't just allowing anything.

View on HN

It is a shame that the free tool of choice is a site that put a DDOS attack in its captcha. So my options are not read the article or... not read the article. Nice.

You say that like "commit a felony to read the article" isn't a valid option (/s).

That’d be sensible reasoning IF the articles were already posted with a paywall-free url, but they are not, so as it stands these are essentially just ads.

IIRC the staff will usually intentionally elevate bypass links to the top whenever they see them posted in the comments. (And when a link has already been posted they tend to sink comments like yours that complain without providing a link, lol)

Again, why not require the bypassed link right from the gate, then? You’d sidestep people complaining about it and wouldn’t little the comment section with people posting alternative links or asking for them.

NYT is the only one profiting getting free publicity for their subscription service here.

Did you create three accounts just to reply? And if so why not stick to just one?

I speculated in a different reply that it’s to reduce dups. Two people could post the same article, but if they used different paywall-bypassers they would appear as separate submissions.

Link the original article with a paywall flag. If paywall, require paywall-bypasser, and link both articles to submission.

My understanding is you’re not supposed to post paywall-cutting links but it’s ok to post them as comments. Perhaps to prevent dupes? Or perhaps there is no such rule.

People do it all the time for LWN. NYT offers subscribers a similar ability to generate free links to paywalled content.

FYI, many US public libraries offer free access to NYT subscription content (which can be used to generate free links).

The NYT subscriber links recently changed, it now requires making a free account to use the link.

But to be clear, the rule is against unofficial mirroring. Officially sanctioned methods are fine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com