[cupcakestand]

tl;dr:

Wall Street Journal ended allowing special access for search engines through their paywall. By spoofing Twitter app's Referer and User Agent access is still possible and an included Chrome Extension script implements this idea.

[chipperyman573]

I thought that google didn't allow websites to alter their appearance for google's UA.

[MarkSweep]

I think the standard was, you could show the whole page to the google search engine so long as you showed the same page to someone clicking through from the search results. That's why the old trick was to search for the article on Google.

[icebraining]

I think the WSJ is just showing Google the reduced version as well.

[donohoe]

Nope. Never been the case.

[Jaruzel]

<rant> Personally, I'm finding the increased use of tl;dr here on HN annoying. I feel, that like myself, HN readers are intelligent enough to read and understand the articles without someone coming along and posting a summary, simply for up-votes.

HN is all about the articles, and then the discussion on top. If people are finding the articles to hard to penetrate that they need a tl;dr summary, then maybe HN isn't the site for them? </rant>

[rovek]

This is exactly the kind of article I expect a tl;dr on, I actually looked for it to save myself opening the article, scanning for "referer" and then closing it immediately (which I did because the tl;dr was so low)

I think this is a backlash from the self-congratulatory, self-indulgent tone medium has perpetuated, not through design I'm sure.

Sometimes one just wants to validate what we expect/know and move on; personally I don't want more than 200 words to elaborate this headline.

edit: typo

[cupcakestand]

Sometimes a tl;dr might be also a subtle and polite hint: The original post could be much shorter and/or its headline could be more expressive and/or less click-baity.

[exodust]

I find the tl;dr's quite useful. Even after reading the article I sometimes see the tl;dr and compare or at least confirm what I just learned in case I missed something.

I admit when they first appeared I felt the same way and didn't like them, but they have since saved me time now and then.

[icantdrive55]

I have found the average HN'er who summarizes does a better job the the original author, in many cases. They might have a better understanding of the information, or just better writers?

I don't like reading wordy articles. I don't like reading rushed, or poorly researched articles behind a paywall.

Traditional journalists/authors have another problem on their hands these days.

They have people out there summarizing their information, many times better, and more concise than the original article--for free. This whole change in the way things were once done is hurting all of us financially.

There are so many times I come here and get such a better understanding of said article by reading the comments.

(I do the think publications need to up their game a bit. It seems like too many decided to hire new college graduates, on the cheap, whom seem to reluctantly spit out a article, or they hire wordy authors who can't write well, but got the job because they know someone at the organization. This is not the time for any publication to hire employees kids, or practice any form form of nepotism. I understand they can't pay like they used to, but this is the time to up your game especially if you want us to pay. Even if they up their game--they might have lost the war. And in certain cities/locales a lot of important issues/information will go under the radar; which I find sad. Maybe the federal government should step in and fund certain publications, but in a hands off approach?)