I find them very annoying, especially the ones that include “a discussion on hacker news”, I’m here because I want to have a discussion here. Unless the link is a video, song, picture, etc. This is mainly regarding news stuff.

I think a post body should usually be empty if it’s a link, or at most should provide a summary or key points.

If you as the OP want to editorialise or provide your opinion on the article, do that in a top-level comment. And most of the time, you should do that. If you’re posting it, you probably have an opinion, so get the conversation started by sharing it!

I am not clicking a random link without some explanation of what it is. I suspect most people are similar in that regard.

I like when the body has a summary of the contents behind the link, or even a personal opinion of OP on the topic or how they found the link etc.

It’s still each users choice if they want to read it or go straight to the link.

IMO that’s an advantage over the alien site.

I kind of prefer people provide context for a link before I jump into it, especially with spam converging on the fediverse and all

It depends on what it is. For things like headline news items, I’m fine with just a link and maybe the intro or summary paragraph in the body. But there are some things people post that make me think “Okay, so what,” and it would be nice to get OP’s thoughts on why it matters.

I’d rather avoid editorialization. Would rather have opinions go in a top-level comment.

I think that it’s useful from a context standpoint if the subtitle or first sentence or paragraph of an article provides a good summary of what the article is about.

Please add some description.

Should all posts include a thought, opinion, or summary from the OP?

Everybody should make some real effort to write things that are worth writing.

Automated posts, low effort posts, and all such nonsense should never be written nor read.

Soon enough, it will become difficult to decide between human and bot. We want to stay human and be recognized as human.

I generally use the body text field for a snippet of the page I’m linking to, usually a paragraph or two that I felt were important takeaways from the article (so that people who generally only skim headlines may still see something useful from the article).

If I’m linking to an article, I personally don’t like putting my own opinion in the OP, itself. I’d rather it be a top-level comment, instead, as it feels like grandstanding on somebody else’s work when it’s in the OP body.

I usually block people who post like that since they post like bots usually. You can’t tell me someone is reading 30 articles in 10 minutes and comprehending them all.

It depends on the community.

Only if it’s self-explanatory, otherwise it could be anything. It could still be anything, but I’m usually less suspicious if there’s some effort on the OP’s part with the description and such.

Depends on the subreddit, but unless it’s an entirely opinion-based community then I prefer an objective summary or nothing at all. If it’s a news subreddit, for instance, I want the article as the main post and if you have an opinion then put it as a comment. This goes for text posts too, I get annoyed when people make Ask Lemmy threads with their own answer in the main post.

My main problem is that it transforms the thread from being about the link (or question) to being about the OP’s specific opinion, because they are inextricably linked and there’s no way to respond to their opinion without making a top-level comment. If the OP simply left an opinionated comment instead, it could have a proper discussion thread like every other commenter, preventing the top-level comments being flooded with replies to OP’s opinion.

Link, the reason it was posted and what is the outcome you’re expecting by posting. That should start the conversation while avoiding that click-baitish feeling.