Ask HN: "Marking" Paywalled Articles Posted on HN

[zahirbmirza]

I do not like wasting two clicks on articles that sound interesting but I cannot read because they are behind a paywall.

What do my fellow HN users think? Should they be autoflagged or marked as paywalled?

Should contributors post a summary that they have themselves written, and add the link elsewhere in their post for those interested? I do think that a smidgen of extra effort would be valued greatly by all.

I know there is HN guidance on this, and I have previously and regretfully posted paywalled articles, but keen on seeing is anyone has any new or better ideas.

[tim-tday]

We should fork an open source browser and anytime a page bait and switches (providing anything but the article) the browser automatically loads the archive page instead.

I’d switch to that browser instantly.

[ramon156]

Most of the time there's an archive.is link in the comments

[DivingForGold]

Unfortunately archive articles don't work for the worst offenders: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times (FT) and Bloomberg most notably. Paywalled sites should be automagically highted in RED when posted in HN, by HN script.

[chrisjj]

I don't like it either.

Manually marking would be error-prone.

I'd prefer a bot to spare readers the current labour of adding the archive.is copy (where available).

[DivingForGold]

I fully support your opinion.