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Comment by kanamekun | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, I can't click on your embedded link... and it's not easy to cut and paste links from my mobile device. So if people started doing this, I would probably just stop clicking on outside links unless I was on my computer and the link looked extremely interesting.

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That's odd, HN converts URLs to links in comments, e.g.:

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/02/thanks_for_killing_the_plane...

It's surprising that it doesn't do so in text submissions.

It shouldn't be hard to add for pg if HNers asks for it I guess. I agree with OP's that webpage titles can't be used as-is and a text submission adding context is better than auto-titled entries.

It's not hard to add, it is omitted on purpose

This is a specific and deliberate policy. I'm on a crappy mobile and can't search from here (HNSearch doesn't work on this browser) but you can find it if you look. I'll see if I can find it later.

EDIT: Ah - it's in the FAQ:

  How do I make a link in a question?

  You can't. (This is to prevent people from using this
  method as a way of submitting a link, but with their
  comments in a privileged position at the top of the page.
  If you want to submit a link with comments, just submit
  it, then add a regular comment.)

Source: http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

Then again, he's proposing a short summary as well, so you won't have to make a choice purely on whether the link looks extremely interesting.

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