> Where is it appropriate to post a subscriber link?
> Almost anywhere. Private mail, messages to project mailing lists, and blog entries are all appropriate. As long as people do not use subscriber links as a way to defeat our attempts to gain subscribers, we are happy to see them shared.
The occasional sharing of subscriber links in this way only does us good. If you enjoy the content, please subscribe and help ensure that there will be more of it!
Joining lwn makes you a gatekeeper for lwn (and allows you to browse and comment on lwn), it doesn't simply allow you to be a reader of lwn. I'm sure their traffic has almost no relationship to their number of subscribers. Subscribers are just the people actively marketing the journalism. It's like a two-level pyramid scheme - you're spreading their journalism and looking smart, and 1/500 of the people you send it to become new subscribers.
They're usually shared links (note the 'share a free link' button at the bottom, above comments) ime - I've never seen it styled like this before. Weird that it's a subscriber-only link that doesn't require login, but does for other subscriber-only actions like sharing a free link or replying to a comment.
> Where is it appropriate to post a subscriber link?
> Almost anywhere. Private mail, messages to project mailing lists, and blog entries are all appropriate. As long as people do not use subscriber links as a way to defeat our attempts to gain subscribers, we are happy to see them shared.