[dang]

Your account has been posting dozens of comments just like this, and we're getting complaints that you're using a bot to do it. Autogenerated comments are not allowed on HN, so can you please not?

Of course it's ok to occasionally post archive links to articles, as long as you don't overdo it relative to other sorts of comments. And there should not be such a mechanical pattern to the posts—one link is fine; you don't need 4!

[archo]

Hi DanG I'm not a Bot, All my posts are Me by hand, just interested in the Articles, and in sharing to ascertain other opinions.

The reason I posted the four archive mirrors, is because readers were complaining that either the .is or .ph links were not working,

and we were ending up with two or more posts with links anyway, so my solution was a one liner.

I am reminded, as per the guidelines that pay-walled Articles must have a work around to be posted on HN:

I will cease and desist posting, as per your request.

Note! Several formatting edits

[dang]

It's ok! I believe you, and you don't have to stop! It would be good to maybe adjust the proportion of the archive comments relative to your posts about other things, but don't worry about it.

I appreciate the reply and am sorry for suggesting the bot thing.

[archo]

Ty DanG, you do the very important work in keeping HN the excellent site it is, you are appreciated!

[r721]

>The reason I posted the four archive mirrors, is because readers were complaining that either the .is or .ph links were not working

Just post the archive.today version, I don't have a citation right now, but I think the owner said (in blog?) that is the way to properly link, it should redirect to the best domain based on user's IP/location.

[dredmorbius]

In the case of archive.today, linking all variants (ph is li vn of md & today) of the domain can be useful given the already legion DNS issues the site faces. I'll punch through all of those hoping that I get lucky with one. (Increasingly that's not the case.) I've written my own local shell scripts/functions to generate the lists for my own use.

I've found the service all but unusable for well over a month now, which means that paywalled HN posts are not accessible:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37148681>

Numerous other HN members are noting issues with (Re)CAPTCHA loops:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37445503>

38 results over the past month on "captcha loop": <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1695104420&dateRange=custom&...>

One workaround for WSJ content, at least, is to look for syndicated publication after a day or so. MSN seems to carry at least some stories as I've noted:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37543995>

I've already noted that when the NY Times bolstered its paywall in 2019, HN front-page stories fell to 25% of their prior average, apparently due to the paywall and reader response to it (presumably fewer upvotes and more flags) rather than any change in HN's own code, ranking, or practices (admins as opposed to readers). Paywalls, like generic topics (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37565975>), make for very poor discussion. Not only does the paywall itself become a (really, legitimate) topic, but the already low evidence of having R'd T.F.A. drops to nanoscopic values.

Expecting HN readers to subscribe to even a small fraction of the tens of thousands of sites which appear on the front page (let alone all submissions), or even the ~150 sites I've identified associated with news organisations (even "public" sources such as the BBC and US NPR affiliates are now "requesting" registration and logging in) really isn't viable.

See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36832354>

Whether that means HN ban strict paywalls (I'm strongly leaning that way), come up with its own arrangement for major news sites (top 20: nytimes.com, bbc.com, bbc.co.uk, theguardian.com, washingtonpost.com, reuters.com, npr.org, cnn.com, slate.com, vice.com, latimes.com, cnet.com, yahoo.com, sfgate.com, cbc.ca, cnbc.com, guardian.co.uk, bits.blogs.nytimes.com, vox.com, salon.com). The full listing of 149 sites accounts for over 8% of HN front-page topics from 2007 through June of this year.

I also know that HN doesn't like single-theme / topic accounts. But unless HN is willing to run this as a service itself (see the "Who's Hiring / Who Wants to be Hired" threads), this is net-net useful.

There's an additional issue that archive sites might not want to be too strongly associated with a principle role of piercing paywalls. But that just gets us back to the issue of paywalled content on HN and the fact that HN is now leaning on two parties (paywall-exploiting publishers, and paywall-piercing archivists) and potentially causing pain to both rather than grabbing the bull by the horns.

[archo]

dredmorbius, your work on this on going issue is positively Herculean! Ty.

[dredmorbius]

Likewise. Balancing annoyance and utility is difficult. I'm nearly always supportive of dang. This is a case in which I disagree strongly with his view.

Late addition:

I think my and dang's views are generally aligned. HN's prime directive is intellectual curiosity. A number of online trends, including paywalls, registration walls, and increasingly reader-hostile Web design, all go strongly against this.

HN guidelines request not discussing these as the discussions are boring. HN itself however has the capacity to respond to such trends by deprecating and banning such sites. In some cases it has done so (though generally you've got to ask to find out). In others, such as with the NY Times and its paywall, the response seems more an organic one of readers deciding that this isn't what they're going to tolerate.

I see this as going hand-in-hand with the current phase of copyright battles against both above-board sites such as the Internet Archive, and those which directly flout copyright to provide access to information to untold billions such as Sci-Hub, ZLibrary, Library Genesis, and Anna's Archive. I would very much like to see the latter succeed. The issue of how authors are to be compensated is often raised, to which I'll note:

- Many authors are dead, and have no interest in compensation. (Their estates or corporate owners of their catalogues may, however.)

- The overwhelming majority of authors aren't compensated for their works at all. That would include virtually anyone posting online. For the minuscule fraction who receive any compensation, the lion's share accrues to a minuscule fraction of those. Many authors write as part of another professional role (academics, researchers, politicians and bureaucrats, members of NGOs, or those simply writing about their other work and/or interests). The remaining minuscule fraction of a minuscule fraction of a minuscule fraction are engaged in a lottery, a game of musical chairs, and a highly random Fame Allocation Fairy who smiles on some whilst ignoring others. The smiles often come either late in life or after death (c.f., F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby, which gained its broad readership only after his death (1940) when distributed to US forces fighting abroad during WWII (1942--5). Uneven reward for genius is legion, as well as exploitation of authors (and songwriters and musicians and actors and screenwriters) by corporations.

- We're already paying tremendously for content, through advertising, a $700+ billion annual turnover enterprise, the bulk of which is supported by the roughly 1 billion inhabitants of wealthy nations, to the tune of $700 per person ($2,800 for a household of four). And yet advertising destroys and corrupts quality content, often ignoring it completely, whilst promoting utter dreck. I see a tax- or Internet-fees supported system as an attractive alternative, and this could provide the equivalent of all current subscription-media and book-purchase revenues at quite low rates, which I'd further suggest be based roughly on household income and/or wealth. The average works out to about $15/person per month, or $100 per year. Far less than the present advertising tax.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26893033>

[dredmorbius]

Cite for the NY Times / paywall fall in front-page story occurrences:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36918251>