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RFD: Inclusion of paywalled articles in sci.space.tech



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 25th 14, 10:14 PM posted to sci.space.tech
David Spain[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 314
Default RFD: Inclusion of paywalled articles in sci.space.tech

Greg,

I'd like to have a group-wide discussion concerning the inclusion of pay-wa
lled articles to sci.space.tech. The worst offender appears to be those tha
t include links to articles in Aviation Week.

Outside of the headline of the article, these postings contain only a link
to an article that is behind a pay-wall. As a non-subscriber to Aviation We
ek, these links do me absolutely no good. In essence because these posts re
quire a subscription in order to be read, and are otherwise devoid of conte
nt, I contend these articles are, in effect, a violation of USENET rules re
garding posting of articles whose sole purpose is to promote the sale of a
commercial product (i.e. spam). It would be different if the posted article
s contained the content of the article, but they do not.

Therefore I question the legitimacy of these postings. Might as well includ
e breakfast cereal ads for all the good they do.

Note that this is *not* the case for those summary articles from Yahoo news
and other sources whose links are not behind pay-walls. I have no issue wi
th those. Overall I laud the intent of trying to make these groups more rel
evant to the readers by including such articles.

But articles pro-offering pay-walled links are not helpful. I suggest they
be removed.

Dave

  #2  
Old July 25th 14, 11:39 PM posted to sci.space.tech
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 752
Default RFD: Inclusion of paywalled articles in sci.space.tech

"David Spain" wrote in message
...

Greg,

I'd like to have a group-wide discussion concerning the inclusion of pay-wa
lled articles to sci.space.tech. The worst offender appears to be those tha
t include links to articles in Aviation Week.


Thanks for the feedback. I think this is a valid issue to discuss and am
welcome further input.

I will refrain my giving my opinion until I get more feedback.



Outside of the headline of the article, these postings contain only a link
to an article that is behind a pay-wall. As a non-subscriber to Aviation We
ek, these links do me absolutely no good. In essence because these posts re
quire a subscription in order to be read, and are otherwise devoid of conte
nt, I contend these articles are, in effect, a violation of USENET rules re
garding posting of articles whose sole purpose is to promote the sale of a
commercial product (i.e. spam). It would be different if the posted article
s contained the content of the article, but they do not.

Therefore I question the legitimacy of these postings. Might as well includ
e breakfast cereal ads for all the good they do.

Note that this is *not* the case for those summary articles from Yahoo news
and other sources whose links are not behind pay-walls. I have no issue wi
th those. Overall I laud the intent of trying to make these groups more rel
evant to the readers by including such articles.

But articles pro-offering pay-walled links are not helpful. I suggest they
be removed.

Dave


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

  #3  
Old July 27th 14, 02:26 AM posted to sci.space.tech
David Spain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,901
Default RFD: Inclusion of paywalled articles in sci.space.tech

On 7/25/2014 6:39 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
"David Spain" wrote in message
...

Greg,

I'd like to have a group-wide discussion concerning the inclusion of
pay-walled articles to sci.space.tech. The worst offender appears to be
those that include links to articles in Aviation Week.


Thanks for the feedback. I think this is a valid issue to discuss and
am welcome further input.

I will refrain my giving my opinion until I get more feedback.


Also in all fairness I should note that not ALL of the Aviation Week
links are to pay-walled articles. But a significant number of them are.
Again, I have no issue with links to non pay-walled articles appearing
in sci.space.tech.

I understand that with the automated nature of these postings it might
be difficult for the moderators to filter based on the result of
following links. If that's the case, it would still be my preference
that the articles not be posted at all, in keeping with the open nature
of USENET.

Thanks Greg for the consideration,
David Spain


  #4  
Old July 29th 14, 03:08 AM posted to sci.space.tech
Alain Fournier
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 49
Default RFD: Inclusion of paywalled articles in sci.space.tech

On 07/25/2014 5:14 PM, David Spain wrote:
Greg,

I'd like to have a group-wide discussion concerning the inclusion of pay-wa
lled articles to sci.space.tech. The worst offender appears to be those tha
t include links to articles in Aviation Week.

Outside of the headline of the article, these postings contain only a link
to an article that is behind a pay-wall. As a non-subscriber to Aviation We
ek, these links do me absolutely no good. In essence because these posts re
quire a subscription in order to be read, and are otherwise devoid of conte
nt, I contend these articles are, in effect, a violation of USENET rules re
garding posting of articles whose sole purpose is to promote the sale of a
commercial product (i.e. spam). It would be different if the posted article
s contained the content of the article, but they do not.

Therefore I question the legitimacy of these postings. Might as well includ
e breakfast cereal ads for all the good they do.

Note that this is *not* the case for those summary articles from Yahoo news
and other sources whose links are not behind pay-walls. I have no issue wi
th those. Overall I laud the intent of trying to make these groups more rel
evant to the readers by including such articles.

But articles pro-offering pay-walled links are not helpful. I suggest they
be removed.



I completely agree with Dave. These links to articles behind a pay-wall
are probably not interesting to those who are subscribed and can go
behind the pay-wall, as having subscribed probably means the person will
look at the headlines of the magazine whether posted to sci.space.tech
or not. And to those who haven't subscribed, these postings are just
commercial adds (spam).

Also as Dave said, for articles that aren't behind a pay-wall, no
problem.


Alain Fournier

  #5  
Old August 30th 14, 04:06 AM posted to sci.space.tech
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 752
Default Inclusion of paywalled articles in sci.space.tech

I apologize for not responding sooner, but lost my personal connection to
newsgroups.

I'd like to continue this discussion. I'll admit, I don't spend much time
when approving the linked article recaps (i.e. I see the subject a few
lines, make sure it's not a spammer and generally approve.) I did automate
one (and I'd have to recheck which one it is, I think it's the one
ironically enough doing the AvWeek ones.

I'll ask a favor, if someone can point out a few of the articles in the
recent days in question, I'll take a closer look.

I think this is a valid issue and worth looking at further.

Next step, getting folks to actually DISCUSS things here :-)

(well besides this).

"Alain Fournier" wrote in message
...

On 07/25/2014 5:14 PM, David Spain wrote:
Greg,

I'd like to have a group-wide discussion concerning the inclusion of
pay-wa
lled articles to sci.space.tech. The worst offender appears to be those
tha
t include links to articles in Aviation Week.

Outside of the headline of the article, these postings contain only a
link
to an article that is behind a pay-wall. As a non-subscriber to Aviation
We
ek, these links do me absolutely no good. In essence because these posts
re
quire a subscription in order to be read, and are otherwise devoid of
conte
nt, I contend these articles are, in effect, a violation of USENET rules
re
garding posting of articles whose sole purpose is to promote the sale of
a
commercial product (i.e. spam). It would be different if the posted
article
s contained the content of the article, but they do not.

Therefore I question the legitimacy of these postings. Might as well
includ
e breakfast cereal ads for all the good they do.

Note that this is *not* the case for those summary articles from Yahoo
news
and other sources whose links are not behind pay-walls. I have no issue
wi
th those. Overall I laud the intent of trying to make these groups more
rel
evant to the readers by including such articles.

But articles pro-offering pay-walled links are not helpful. I suggest
they
be removed.



I completely agree with Dave. These links to articles behind a pay-wall
are probably not interesting to those who are subscribed and can go
behind the pay-wall, as having subscribed probably means the person will
look at the headlines of the magazine whether posted to sci.space.tech
or not. And to those who haven't subscribed, these postings are just
commercial adds (spam).

Also as Dave said, for articles that aren't behind a pay-wall, no
problem.


Alain Fournier


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

  #6  
Old September 4th 14, 04:20 AM posted to sci.space.tech
David Spain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,901
Default Inclusion of paywalled articles in sci.space.tech

On 8/29/2014 11:06 PM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
I apologize for not responding sooner, but lost my personal connection
to newsgroups.

I'd like to continue this discussion. I'll admit, I don't spend much
time when approving the linked article recaps (i.e. I see the subject a
few lines, make sure it's not a spammer and generally approve.) I did
automate one (and I'd have to recheck which one it is, I think it's the
one ironically enough doing the AvWeek ones.

I'll ask a favor, if someone can point out a few of the articles in the
recent days in question, I'll take a closer look.

I think this is a valid issue and worth looking at further.

Next step, getting folks to actually DISCUSS things here :-)

(well besides this).


:-)

Hi Greg,

No problem, sorry didn't respond sooner. This came in the day I was
extremely busy at the day job getting ready for this week. Which is
vacation week for me! Wahoo! As such, this evening while catching up on
unread items newsy, I saw your post.

In some ways I think it very fortunate for us that AvWeek postings are
automated! This gives us (well you actually :-) a fighting chance
perhaps. Can your automation follow the link it wishes to post prior to
actually posting? If so you can search for the returned URL containing
a substring? The actual substring in question contains the chars:
"awin.aviationweek.com/AWINLogin"... This seems to be their universal
paywall redirect URL and in consistent in the extreme.

Here's a case in point based on AvWeek traffic that came in on the same
day as your posting. I'm pasting two URLs. The one that was sent out in
the automated posting to this newsgroup and the paywall URL to which it
is re-directed:

Article URL:
///////////////////////////////////////////
Opinion: Moon Is Next Step Toward Mars

Posted: 01 Sep 2014 01:22 PM PDT
http://aviationweek.com/space/opinio...ep-toward-mars

Re-direct URL:

http://awin.aviationweek.com/AWINLog...d-515e898fae9d

Unfortunately there appears no clue given in the posted URL that
indicates that this link is paywalled. However, clearly once that link
is traversed the subsequent URL that appears in my browser is quite clear.

Greg, can your auto posting software handle two-level URL inspection?
How does it harvest articles for reposting today? Is this through an RSS
feed?

Dave

 




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