

NY Times Articles on HN - iamjdg

Is it me or are there now lots of NY Times articles on HN?  The titles are always &quot;interesting&quot;, of course you click and you get hit with the paywall.  Seems like someone is intentionally submitting &quot;interesting&quot; NY Times articles on HN to get traffic and hope for a conversion rate.  Are they being submitted by a few users or is it randomly distributed?  Is there a way to crack down on this?
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ColinWright
Just to add some facts to your speculation, and as a quick check, in the last
7 days there have been 86 submissions from the NY Times. Of those, 61 were by
single submission authors. Those who have submitted more than one are:

    
    
          4 danso
          4 001sky
          3 wallflower
          3 RougeFemme
          3 rosser
          2 the_economist
          2 panarky
          2 kanamekun
          2 ibsathish
    

There was even one submitted by pg:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6955707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6955707)

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iamjdg
Interesting. Does "single submission authors" mean: (i) they have only
submitted 1 NY times article but have made other submissions or (ii) they have
only ever submitted 1 article and it was a NY Times article?

~~~
ColinWright
It was intended to mean the former ... stand by ...

OK, done. In the last seven days, 61 people who have submitted one and only
item from the NYT. For 37 of them, that was the only submission made over the
past 7 days. However, the other 24 made more than one submission. The
following includes the NYT submission:

    
    
        9 made 2 submissions (hence 1 other)
        5 made 3 submissions (hence 2 others)
        1 made 4 submissions (etc)
        1 made 5 submissions
        4 made 6 submissions
    

and then one each of 9, 10, 18, and 58 submissions.

I haven't checked the total number of submissions of those who submitted more
than one NYT item. To do so would require a more sensible reporting format
than just listing them.

~~~
iamjdg
Cool, thanks. So approximately 43% of the NYT submissions were made by members
who only submitted that article. Would be interesting to know if these are new
members, who perhaps created accounts for the sake of promoting NYT paywall
articles...or maybe I just really want there to be a conspiracy...

~~~
ColinWright
Looking at how long these accounts have been registered, initial results are:

    
    
        created:  854 days ago	    created:  601 days ago
        created:  923 days ago	    created: 2466 days ago
        created:   13 days ago	    created: 1304 days ago
        created: 1311 days ago	    created: 1983 days ago
        created: 1168 days ago	    created:  500 days ago
        created:  319 days ago	    created: 1286 days ago
        created:  305 days ago	    created:  817 days ago
        created: 1793 days ago	    created: 1822 days ago
        created:   89 days ago	    created: 1444 days ago
        created:  899 days ago	    created:  491 days ago
        created:  736 days ago	    created:  649 days ago
        created: 1160 days ago	    created: 1767 days ago
        created:  363 days ago	    created:  560 days ago
        created: 1554 days ago	    created:  863 days ago
        created:   81 days ago	    created: 1169 days ago
        created: 1316 days ago	    created:  310 days ago
        created:  504 days ago	    created:  176 days ago
        created: 2015 days ago	    created:  142 days ago
        created:  838 days ago
    

Now complete.

So no, these don't appear to be newly registered accounts specifically for the
purpose of shilling for NYT. Why do you want there to be a conspiracy?

~~~
iamjdg
Great detective work!...oh i don't know why I want there to be a conspiracy,
maybe my own life is not exciting enough :)

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iamjdg
In general paywalls from large, prestigious organizations scare me. For now I
can ignore them, as there are hundreds of other sources of interesting content
that generate revenue from traditional means (advertising, selling your
information, etc.). But if the paywall scheme is successful for such
organizations, others will follow suit, and the abundance of “free” quality
content will dry up. The rolling snowball effect, I hope the snowball melts
before it has a chance to gain momentum.

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intslack
I have no trouble with the "paywall", try configuring your browser to clear
cookies after a session ends (personally, I use
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-
destruct...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-destructing-
cookies/)) or just use private browsing mode for NYT.

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ahquresh
I used to love reading the NY Times and would still argue that it is a quality
newspaper (or as good as one there is these days) but even I would have to
agree that the paywall is rather annoying and articles with the paywall should
be tagged as such.

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gexla
Another way to view NY Times articles articles without the paywall is to drop
the title into a Google search. Going through Google drops the paywall for me.

~~~
iamjdg
Yes, worked for me as well. Interesting, same browser, but if you click from
HN versus a google search the count starts over? So you can do it 10 times
before you hit the paywall again? I would think a different browser would work
(different cookie), but the same browser...I wonder what this says about the
NYT algorithm?

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ibstudios
I don't like it either. It should be marked in the title. Example Title: "This
is the best paywalled article you will ever see!(PAYWALL)"

