Editing it and replacing with “removed” or “.” is fine in these cases, since you can’t delete it once replied to; if the two hour edit window is closed, email the mods (footer contact) and ask them to autocollapse it for you.
(Fwiw, the mods are chill, and you could basically take that entire comment and ask it of them aggrieved-plaintively and they would try to be kind about that, so long as it’s not lashing out at them personally. Never feel like you have to be frustrated at community behavior here silently; either it’s an intentional thing or it’s something they’d like to address or once in a while they’re uncertain too, but you can always ask. I certainly do.)
If goal is to improve access to information, favoring sources that don't paywall content seems reasonable, or at least it would be if they weren't easy to bypass. That doesn't mean not paying journalists (but noncommerical blogs are responsbile for a lot of interesting HN content too, probably disproportionately so when it comes to in-depth technical investigation).
I agree with everything you said. Favouring non-paywalled content is reasonable and sensible, and lots of interesting HN content was made for free. I'm only arguing that, in those cases where an article is being charged for, we should not attempt to duck that requirement through technology -- that's trying to get something for nothing.
And yes, this would in general mean fewer or perhaps zero such articles on HN. (For content producers, this is the flip side of paywalling your site: Less word-of-mouth on sites like HN.)
This is already a niche view, but even more controversially I think it applies to ad-supported content too: If a site offers free access to content but shows ads, we should not block those ads. It doesn't matter that pages encrusted with ads are annoying -- viewing the ads is part of the contract.
This is, in fact, exactly how the system is supposed to work.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
Editing it and replacing with “removed” or “.” is fine in these cases, since you can’t delete it once replied to; if the two hour edit window is closed, email the mods (footer contact) and ask them to autocollapse it for you.
(Fwiw, the mods are chill, and you could basically take that entire comment and ask it of them aggrieved-plaintively and they would try to be kind about that, so long as it’s not lashing out at them personally. Never feel like you have to be frustrated at community behavior here silently; either it’s an intentional thing or it’s something they’d like to address or once in a while they’re uncertain too, but you can always ask. I certainly do.)
Thank you for the guidance, have mailed them :)
Not paying journalists for their work is short-term thinking, to say the least.
If goal is to improve access to information, favoring sources that don't paywall content seems reasonable, or at least it would be if they weren't easy to bypass. That doesn't mean not paying journalists (but noncommerical blogs are responsbile for a lot of interesting HN content too, probably disproportionately so when it comes to in-depth technical investigation).
I agree with everything you said. Favouring non-paywalled content is reasonable and sensible, and lots of interesting HN content was made for free. I'm only arguing that, in those cases where an article is being charged for, we should not attempt to duck that requirement through technology -- that's trying to get something for nothing.
And yes, this would in general mean fewer or perhaps zero such articles on HN. (For content producers, this is the flip side of paywalling your site: Less word-of-mouth on sites like HN.)
This is already a niche view, but even more controversially I think it applies to ad-supported content too: If a site offers free access to content but shows ads, we should not block those ads. It doesn't matter that pages encrusted with ads are annoying -- viewing the ads is part of the contract.