"Did you read the article?" is a particularly unhelpful comment when the linked article has been hugged to death, and the real article is behind a sign in wall.

> "Did you read the article?" is a particularly unhelpful comment when the linked article has been hugged to death, and the real article is behind a sign in wall.

As is making assumptious comment without reading the article, especially when the comment may be wrong. I think it's not only unhelpful, but actually harmful, because other people, who also jump straight to comment section, may form an opinion based on misinformation. Also, timbit42 did provide us with what they read in the linked content; unless they added it with an edit.

I read it using the archive.org link. Should people comment without having read the article and knowing what it claims?

Are you kidding? Asking if people read the article is more helpful when there's an unusually large number of people that haven't.

And if they need help accessing it, help can be arranged.

Well sometimes people don't. I know I've done this on occasion. Just read the title and dive in with my own opinion.

Yup. I don't think HN can avoid this at scale, though. It's been a problem on sites like this since early in the days of Slashdot.

The fundamental problem is that the voting and karma system actively incentivizes this kind of behavior. No amount of "did you read the article?" comments can counteract that force. All they do is increase the noise level even further.