Mastodawn

Martin Hoffmann

Dear everyone! It would be wonderful if you could mark links to paywalled articles as such – something simple like “($)” is more than good enough. Maybe we can make this part of the quiet Mastodon etiquette?

It is super frustrating to get a link to an article that sounds interesting, go there, click away the cookie banner,* then click away the newsletter popup, finally start reading and then the text fades out.

* I am aware there are tools for that.

Plausible Human Being 2d ago

I STRONGLY agree with this.

@partim Yes, I am always grateful if people do this.

o ifrit 🌱2d ago

@partim
Anti-paywall tools are wide used here, so no many people care about it...
In the other way, what is the point of sharing a paywalled link? (knowing that most of the sites doesn't offer a 'pay for read one article' option) 🤷

Anyway, I support content warning like the one you propose 👌

Jake in the desert 2d ago

@partim very true. And this is why I just would NEVER link a paywalled article here 😬😂

Matthew Merkovich 2d ago

@partim I only post paywall broken links which I think should be the norm.

Douglas Edwards

@partim Sounds like a good idea. Also important to be aware that there are levels of "free". Even some supposedly "unlocked" or "free" articles require you to create an account in order to gain access, even though payment is not required. Examples: Medscape, unlocked articles from the Washington Post. IIRC Medscape, although it does not require payment, does require you to attest that you are some type of healthcare professional. (I'm a pharmacist and I've had a Medscape account since forever; they might have changed their policy.)

@partim so annoying not to know, so frustrating to have to close the site and try to find other means of seeing the article

@partim I strongly approve, but might it not be that people who link to such articles are either not aware of forget that they're paying for them and hence don't pay attention to the fact it's paywalled?

Martin Hoffmann 2d ago

@jpmens That is certainly part of it. But it being a thing might still help – if you see it everywhere, you are more likely to remember.

@partim @jpmens It's not always obvious which articles are paywalled when you are signed in with a subscription.

Tim Chase 2d ago

@jpmens @partim

Similarly, I've occasionally shared articles that turned out to be "paywalled" (or behind a "you get N articles for free") but I use an ad-blocker that made the entire article accessible without me noticing what hoi polloi would experience.

Sometimes I go back and delete or annotate the post; other times I just shrug and move on.

Tomáš Znamenáček 2d ago

@partim I like people using 🔒 to mark paywalled articles and 🔓 to mark unlocked / gifted ones.

Using images to convey important information is very bad for making it accessible.

I am fully sighted (with glasses) and the emojis in your post were not that distinguishable without looking closely.

#accessibility #noemoji

Tomáš Znamenáček 2d ago

@w_b @partim Emoji are not images though? They are more like characters, not just a grid of pixels but a “concept” like “man raising hand” or “swimmer”. A screenreader can read them for you. But the two locks are often too close to each other visually in many emoji sets, that’s right. We could use 🔐🔓 to make the difference more obvious and push for emoji sets to improve the lock icons.

Or we could just use a $ which is much easier to distinguish

Martin Bodlák 💙💛1d ago

@partim I usually use the padlock icon 🔒