[privong]

It is annoying. But on the flip side, if the link was included, someone would have invariably commented that the "article reads like an ad". The authors can't win.

[jonathanjaeger]

I disagree. I think it's MUCH worse when, for example, you read an article about a Kickstarter project on Mashable or TechCrunch only to find that clicking on the hyperlink leads to other articles on those sites about Kickstarter and not the actual project link. I think those sites have gotten better at linking directly when commenters complain.

[privong]

Oh, I wasn't saying one was better than the other. Just observing that no matter what one did, someone would be unhappy about it :)