No, I don’t mind at all, and I’m happy to try to find an alternate source for the story (which is often from one of our local TV stations, and provides only scant details, which is why I went to the newspaper story first.)
No. That is too extreme a requirement.
This would cut off a lot of proper academic citation in GD and FQ, because a lot of journals are still not free access. Not going to stop citing JSTOR or Academia papers.
Maybe, but posting citations to support an argument that no one can read does the argument no good at all.
Correct, but if the post also contains the money quote(s) from the linked article, then the argument has been supported. And we don’t necessarily have to click on the link.
If you’re not willing to log out of e.g. the NYT to see if your cite still works for an anonymous user, then don’t bother citing it at all. To me that’s about the lowest possible threshold of care. Don’t care even that much? Then why should I read your writing?
At a bare minimum say some thing like “I’m a paid-up subscriber to the New York Times, so this link might not work unless you are too. Good luck: [link goes here]”.
The subscription-only places where I have subscriptions and that I’m likely to cite have gift links that work for like the first 5 people to hit them, then they cut off. So at first it seems like I’ve created a publicly readable cite. And then two hours later after a few people have read my post, suddenly I haven’t. Oops.
Ultimately, if you’re citing something thats not like e.g. wiki, clearly public domain, your argument needs to stand even if the cite is inaccessible. Which means a reasonable portion of 'the cites key points need to be copied into your post. With very careful attention paid to fair use limits and the SDMBs right’ly touchy attitude about reposting substantial pieces of copyrighted / paywalled works.
Bottom line:
This is a messy subject. If we’re writing to be understood, not merely to enjoy the act of typing, we need to ensure we make the effort to make our audience’s experience correct enough and complete enough that they do indeed have a chance to get our point.
Hard disagree. News companies won’t survive without revenue. I pay for access to a number of sources because i think they do a decent job of reporting the news. I’m not going to favor crappy “free” sources when better sources are available; sources that i want to support.
I’ll try to summarize enough of the article that you get the gist. And i am confident that enough other posters have access that i will be caught if I’m making shit up. And sometimes, when there’s interest, i will give a gift article if that’s an option. But if you don’t want to pay for news, ultimately i think that’s a “you” problem, and you can trust those of us who pay, or move on.
I certainly see your point. And very well defended. Thank you.
Hmm; I need to chew on this.
There was an era when free content was good content. Nowadays as you say free has become a loss leader at best and deliberate misinformation at worst.
If there was an effective micropayment system with enough coverage life would be great for both content providers and consumers. How to make that happen? Both sides (claim to) want it, and yet it doesn’t exist.
There’s a difference between ‘no one can read’ and ‘no one can bother to read’. Academic sources are available to everyone who takes some trouble, like through a library.
I generally try to find free academic sources where possible. That’s not always the case. Doesn’t mean I won’t cite things.
This is the same mindset that says not to cite books. Hell no! The good stuff isn’t on Reddit and Xitter.
There’s also a difference between the kind of link you expect people to read, and the kind that’s there to provide backup if backup is needed (if anyone feels the need to check up on you or get more information).
Your first paragraph quoted here is completely belied by your subsequent paragraph from the same post.
In other words, even if I go to the trouble of logging out of my NYT or WaPo account, I still have no idea if there is a limit to the number of people who can read a link, or if they are at their personal article limit, or whatever.
On this I agree with you. When I post a link, it is generally only for the convenience for someone who wants more information or context and cares to look up my cite. I think I generally endeavor to avoid posting bare links with no key points in my post. If the key points are a small part of the article in question, I will generally quote it with attribution.
FWIW WaPo’s “gift articles” now require the recipient to sign up with an email. Many of us are not going to do that.
Not sure when it started but posters who think they are gifting an article of shared interest should be aware and might find a different source to share the same information.
Breaking news type articles are of course all over the place including lots of free sites so there is no reason to cite a paywalled source. I usually check with AP News myself for these articles.
A great many paywalled articles have been legally republished elsewhere. For example a great many Washington Post and Wall Street Journal articles are republished by MSN.com. See for example (the Top Stories in News):
As the one who posted the links causing the complaint: I have to grumble at the news sites, which provide the ability to share an article via a “gift link”… which evidently just means the person can read without paying, NOT that they can read without REGISTERING.
Since I have a subscription to WaPo, I can follow that “gift link” without getting any kind of notice. It’s not obvious that it only works if you register.
A gift link should NOT require registration.
Yes, this is what I generally do. You’re likely to find the same information elsewhere that isn’t paywalled, especially if it’s a major news story.
The difference with academic papers is that even if they’re paywalled, there’s almost always an abstract that isn’t. For discussions with a general audience, the abstract of an academic paper should be a sufficient cite to support your argument. Few in such an audience would likely bother reading the entirety of a technical paper anyway. It’s not the same as a paywalled media article where you may get a few opening sentences or you may get nothing at all beyond the headline.
I’ve wondered about that. Just a couple of days ago I found an abstract on JSTOR that seemed to make my point but I didn’t link to it because I worried there was something in the body of the paper itself that might provide more context and invalidate my point. And I wouldn’t even be able to know if that was the case or not. So I’ve been very skittish about including them on this board, I wasn’t sure how others felt about such a thing.
Often, if you Google the headline of an article about health or science, you can find the pubmed or other academic source of the info.
The abstract is almost always supported by the body of the paper. At least for medical articles, which i often read.
Thanks, that’s good to know. That shows my expertise with such articles (or lack thereof). 
A hypothetical worry would be someone arguing in bad faith using selective quoting to misrepresent the article to support their point, but that happens with all sources. It’s not a problem with sources, it’s a problem with bad debaters with crooked agendas.
Pardon the OP hit and run. Multiple crises with their powers combined.
It’s a valid complaint because these supposed “paywalls” aren’t real paywalls like you’d see in a paid academic journal. Wapo and many others haven chosen to make their articles available even if a single click suggests otherwise.
It’s a valid complaint because they don’t have to create an account just because they see “create an account” when they click the link.
In both cases, it takes more time to post the objection than it takes to learn, once, for it to not be a problem.
Newspapers could cut off access in an instant should they find that cost effective. Until then, I hope ignorance annoys most people on this board. I’ll follow whatever rules you set (unless they’re truly incompatible with my participation — this is barely noticeable), which is why I haven’t even posted some of the actions others have disclosed in this thread. My instruction from Jenny was “We’re owned by a newspaper. […] Be cool.” If you think that choosing what third party code you allow to run on your device is illegal, that’s your prerogative. This is the same board with former mods who once thought that the only purpose of a VPN was for IP piracy; thus, we couldn’t talk about it at all.
But we have multiple mods in agreement here with a clear position, so I’ll just skip over the clutter posts until we get a similar resolution to the VPN situation.