Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
My pet peeve on this forum is to see a claim by a person I disagree with that has a link to back it up. I think 'can this be true? If so, I'm wrong. I better read about this, so I can get right.'
Then I click on the link and hit a paywall. No way to verify what the other poster claimed, and no way to point out a "small print" in the story that renders it meaningless. Confronted with this, one of three things can happen:
1) I can roll my eyes in disgust, having wasted my time.
2) I can look for the story in another news outlet. This is usually fruitless, which indicates to me that whatever great revelation the other poster is referrencing is opinion, not fact. But I can't prove that.
3) I can subscribe to the website for the chance to prove imurboy or whoever that they are wrong about what the article said.
None of those are of any benefit to the posters on here, and 3) turns USMB into advertisers for the pay websites.
Recommend banning links to pay sites. Just my opinion, though. Your word, your rules.
Then I click on the link and hit a paywall. No way to verify what the other poster claimed, and no way to point out a "small print" in the story that renders it meaningless. Confronted with this, one of three things can happen:
1) I can roll my eyes in disgust, having wasted my time.
2) I can look for the story in another news outlet. This is usually fruitless, which indicates to me that whatever great revelation the other poster is referrencing is opinion, not fact. But I can't prove that.
3) I can subscribe to the website for the chance to prove imurboy or whoever that they are wrong about what the article said.
None of those are of any benefit to the posters on here, and 3) turns USMB into advertisers for the pay websites.
Recommend banning links to pay sites. Just my opinion, though. Your word, your rules.