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I would wager they are doing the same thing for HN. Also of note, ever since I started coming back here for the first time in several years, I couldn’t help bu

I would wager they are doing the same thing for HN. Also of note, ever since I started coming back here for the first time in several years, I couldn’t help but notice the high percentage of NYT articles posted here. I’m not saying they don’t fit the HN mold/interest bucket, but I was just surprised to see so many headlines from them here, on HN, so regularly. I think NYT is playing a strong grassroots/AstroTurf/social media game.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
They probably have a bunch of sites they do this to. Each time someone discovers a new one they probably create another config for that site and then whenever a link is posted the bot spams the channel with "hey, $author's article about $title" is being discussed on $site at $link2comments".
Causality1 7y ago
HN punches above its weight class when it comes to influence so it's unsurprising the NYT wants to keep their visibility here high.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  About 90% of the time when some group of people claim they have influence they have fuck-all influence. Reminds me of the time some 4chan users tried to have ReCaptcha label things 'penis' because they had this inflated sense of influence. ReCaptcha said that it was trivial to handle the increased traffic and that it was not only auto-filtered out but also a drop in the bucket. Everyone always thinks they're hot shit. But the world is a big place.
  - duxup 7y ago
    I remember when folks felt stupid spats on slashdot mattered. It didn't.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rchaud 7y ago
There would probably have been more WSJ submissions if it weren't for the paywall. NYT's paywall at least offers a few free articles each month. The other reason NYT links appear often is because there just aren't that many outlets doing journalism (and followup articles) on areas that are of interest to HN's audience.
lil_tee 7y ago
FWIW, nytimes.com accounts for ~4% of all posts that appear on the HN homepage: https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-trends/?q=nytimes.com&f=domain&s=text&m=frac_items&t=year https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-trends/?q=...
- grahamburger 7y ago
  That's quite a lot! One of every 25, so probably at least one on the front page at any time? Are there domains that account for considerably more than 4%? Would be interesting to see a top ten list.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lil_tee 7y ago
    nytimes.com is #3 domain of late, really #2 behind only github.com if you exclude ycombinator.com (all of the Shows, Asks, etc.) Top 10 domains by # of items on front page since 1/1/18: rank | domain | count ------+-----------------+------- 1 | github.com | 2041 2 | ycombinator.com | 1911 3 | nytimes.com | 1818 4 | bloomberg.com | 1028 5 | medium.com | 826 6 | techcrunch.com | 735 7 | theguardian.com | 666 8 | github.io | 615 9 | bbc.com | 558 10 | arstechnica.com | 493
- sol_remmy2 7y ago
  While that is true, NYT posts are more highly upvoted than most other frontpage items
- postCountAintit 7y ago
  Okay, but honestly, counting submissions is the weaker metric. There ain't a fucking day that goes by that NYT isn't on the fucking main page, and it AIN'T because the articles are that good. You mean to tell me NYT is just naturally in the top 30 submissions, ALL DAY LONG, for 100% of days, for months at a time? Even above 90% of days gets to be slightly disgusting for a supposedly diverse news aggregator to stay "intellectually stimulating." The articles that get vote brigaded to the surface are fluffy, political and shallow. Also, with copious political bias, according to the usual NYT leanings. You know they're looking at the github repo and operating accounts to circumvent the usual vote ring detectors. How many other outlets do this? Maybe arstechnica and techcrunch. Not even wired is on the main page this much. Not BBC. Not CNN. I've stopped clicking NYT articles because I've grown to hate their ultra polarized reporting and journalism, ever since November 2016.
reaperducer 7y ago
ever since I started coming back here for the first time in several years, I couldn’t help but notice the high percentage of NYT articles posted here The Times has had a dedicated Science section for as long as I can remember (going back at least to the 80's), even pre-dating the existence of its Sports section by a decade or more. And it's well-known for being on top of business news and current events. So it just seems natural that its articles align with the interests of many in the HN crowd. Over the last ten years, especially the most recent five, the NYT has done a lot of leading-edge things in the arenas of technology, transparency, and disclosure. It seems to be more and more a tech-friendly publication, in a good way. (See also: The Guardian.) It's always done the hard data mining, but more frequently it's showing people how things are done behind the scenes, and done some very interesting Apple-quality experiments in presenting its articles online. And if you're into design, the printed version of the Sunday Times is full of different interesting delights each week. /Not an employee, just a print/online subscriber.
MeltySmelty 7y ago
astroturfing rag
matt4077 7y ago
Or, just maybe, the New York Times is the world's leading newspaper and therefore happens to publish a large number of articles, some of which overlap with HN's collective interests?
anthuman 7y ago
The high percentage of NYT on the internet and especially social media is due to the NYT spending the last few years bullying social media platforms into giving it special treatment. They aren't playing a "game". They are using their power as the establishment media to force tech companies to serve nytimes' ( and the elite's ) interests. As the nytimes and other "authoritative" sources get special treatment online, it's going to crush local news and smaller news. Funny how a few years ago, it was local news and smaller news upstarts ( vice, vox, huffpo, etc ) dominating online and "authoritative" sources struggling to compete. Why compete when you can change the rules to favor yourself. The NYT isn't playing a strong grassroots/AstroTurf/social media game. They tried for the past 15 years and they failed. So they decided to change the rules in their favor. Why compete when you can cheat? Also, it was pressure from the NYT and other authoritative sources that forced reddit to start censoring. It was NYT and other authoritative sources that forced twitter to censor criticism of privileged journalists. The push for censorship and control online has been spearheaded by the elitists at the "authoritative" source companies.
- codyb 7y ago
  Do you have any sources for this bullying? I like the NY Times. I have a feeling watching nearly every newspaper around them collapse or struggle has spurred them to act in creative ways to stay relevant. I'm not saying they're not throwing their weight around, but I'm just not certain what you're referring to and you seem to really really dislike the NY Times. And I think it's worked personally, and they've brought some great stories to light as of late. Plus, as a New Yorker, I enjoy the New York section, and probably have some sense of pride in having such an established and premier news outlet so close.
- rconti 7y ago
  I'm also interested in what you consider to be bullying social media platforms into giving them special treatment / using their power to force others to serve their interests. When I hear this, I think of the equivalent of large beer distributors trying to push retailers to not have tap handles of independent breweries. Or big chip companies paying for shelf space and also to dictate the placement of their competitors. I'm wondering how this works in the news space.
snowwrestler 7y ago
It's kind of a pedantic point, but this is not really a "New York Times article" the same way a news story by Maggie Haberman is. This is a post on the blog that the NYT tech and design teams use to talk about their work. NY Times has a long history of fostering technical innovation. I believe the D3 project originally started as a library at the NY Times for powering their interactive graphics. Whether or not they use a Slack bot for it, I bet some NYT folks lurk or even participate here on HN.
A2017U1 7y ago
Is funny to see this because I've developed sentiment systems that would parse in (somewhat) real-time and get handed over to govt and big business paying for lucrative contracts. You'd be surprised how obscure a forum we'd be mining and selling off. Some people seem to get that it's happening, but I think very few know the extent.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

They probably have a bunch of sites they do this to. Each time someone discovers a new one they probably create another config for that site and then whenever a link is posted the bot spams the channel with "hey, $author's article about $title" is being discussed on $site at $link2comments".

Causality1 7y ago

HN punches above its weight class when it comes to influence so it's unsurprising the NYT wants to keep their visibility here high.

scarejunba 7y ago
About 90% of the time when some group of people claim they have influence they have fuck-all influence. Reminds me of the time some 4chan users tried to have ReCaptcha label things 'penis' because they had this inflated sense of influence. ReCaptcha said that it was trivial to handle the increased traffic and that it was not only auto-filtered out but also a drop in the bucket. Everyone always thinks they're hot shit. But the world is a big place.
- duxup 7y ago
  I remember when folks felt stupid spats on slashdot mattered. It didn't.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rchaud 7y ago

There would probably have been more WSJ submissions if it weren't for the paywall. NYT's paywall at least offers a few free articles each month. The other reason NYT links appear often is because there just aren't that many outlets doing journalism (and followup articles) on areas that are of interest to HN's audience.

lil_tee 7y ago

FWIW, nytimes.com accounts for ~4% of all posts that appear on the HN homepage: https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-trends/?q=nytimes.com&f=domain&s=text&m=frac_items&t=year https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-trends/?q=...

grahamburger 7y ago
That's quite a lot! One of every 25, so probably at least one on the front page at any time? Are there domains that account for considerably more than 4%? Would be interesting to see a top ten list.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lil_tee 7y ago
  nytimes.com is #3 domain of late, really #2 behind only github.com if you exclude ycombinator.com (all of the Shows, Asks, etc.) Top 10 domains by # of items on front page since 1/1/18: rank | domain | count ------+-----------------+------- 1 | github.com | 2041 2 | ycombinator.com | 1911 3 | nytimes.com | 1818 4 | bloomberg.com | 1028 5 | medium.com | 826 6 | techcrunch.com | 735 7 | theguardian.com | 666 8 | github.io | 615 9 | bbc.com | 558 10 | arstechnica.com | 493
sol_remmy2 7y ago
While that is true, NYT posts are more highly upvoted than most other frontpage items
postCountAintit 7y ago
Okay, but honestly, counting submissions is the weaker metric. There ain't a fucking day that goes by that NYT isn't on the fucking main page, and it AIN'T because the articles are that good. You mean to tell me NYT is just naturally in the top 30 submissions, ALL DAY LONG, for 100% of days, for months at a time? Even above 90% of days gets to be slightly disgusting for a supposedly diverse news aggregator to stay "intellectually stimulating." The articles that get vote brigaded to the surface are fluffy, political and shallow. Also, with copious political bias, according to the usual NYT leanings. You know they're looking at the github repo and operating accounts to circumvent the usual vote ring detectors. How many other outlets do this? Maybe arstechnica and techcrunch. Not even wired is on the main page this much. Not BBC. Not CNN. I've stopped clicking NYT articles because I've grown to hate their ultra polarized reporting and journalism, ever since November 2016.

reaperducer 7y ago

ever since I started coming back here for the first time in several years, I couldn’t help but notice the high percentage of NYT articles posted here The Times has had a dedicated Science section for as long as I can remember (going back at least to the 80's), even pre-dating the existence of its Sports section by a decade or more. And it's well-known for being on top of business news and current events. So it just seems natural that its articles align with the interests of many in the HN crowd. Over the last ten years, especially the most recent five, the NYT has done a lot of leading-edge things in the arenas of technology, transparency, and disclosure. It seems to be more and more a tech-friendly publication, in a good way. (See also: The Guardian.) It's always done the hard data mining, but more frequently it's showing people how things are done behind the scenes, and done some very interesting Apple-quality experiments in presenting its articles online. And if you're into design, the printed version of the Sunday Times is full of different interesting delights each week. /Not an employee, just a print/online subscriber.

MeltySmelty 7y ago

astroturfing rag

matt4077 7y ago

Or, just maybe, the New York Times is the world's leading newspaper and therefore happens to publish a large number of articles, some of which overlap with HN's collective interests?

anthuman 7y ago

The high percentage of NYT on the internet and especially social media is due to the NYT spending the last few years bullying social media platforms into giving it special treatment. They aren't playing a "game". They are using their power as the establishment media to force tech companies to serve nytimes' ( and the elite's ) interests. As the nytimes and other "authoritative" sources get special treatment online, it's going to crush local news and smaller news. Funny how a few years ago, it was local news and smaller news upstarts ( vice, vox, huffpo, etc ) dominating online and "authoritative" sources struggling to compete. Why compete when you can change the rules to favor yourself. The NYT isn't playing a strong grassroots/AstroTurf/social media game. They tried for the past 15 years and they failed. So they decided to change the rules in their favor. Why compete when you can cheat? Also, it was pressure from the NYT and other authoritative sources that forced reddit to start censoring. It was NYT and other authoritative sources that forced twitter to censor criticism of privileged journalists. The push for censorship and control online has been spearheaded by the elitists at the "authoritative" source companies.

codyb 7y ago
Do you have any sources for this bullying? I like the NY Times. I have a feeling watching nearly every newspaper around them collapse or struggle has spurred them to act in creative ways to stay relevant. I'm not saying they're not throwing their weight around, but I'm just not certain what you're referring to and you seem to really really dislike the NY Times. And I think it's worked personally, and they've brought some great stories to light as of late. Plus, as a New Yorker, I enjoy the New York section, and probably have some sense of pride in having such an established and premier news outlet so close.
rconti 7y ago
I'm also interested in what you consider to be bullying social media platforms into giving them special treatment / using their power to force others to serve their interests. When I hear this, I think of the equivalent of large beer distributors trying to push retailers to not have tap handles of independent breweries. Or big chip companies paying for shelf space and also to dictate the placement of their competitors. I'm wondering how this works in the news space.

snowwrestler 7y ago

It's kind of a pedantic point, but this is not really a "New York Times article" the same way a news story by Maggie Haberman is. This is a post on the blog that the NYT tech and design teams use to talk about their work. NY Times has a long history of fostering technical innovation. I believe the D3 project originally started as a library at the NY Times for powering their interactive graphics. Whether or not they use a Slack bot for it, I bet some NYT folks lurk or even participate here on HN.

A2017U1 7y ago

Is funny to see this because I've developed sentiment systems that would parse in (somewhat) real-time and get handed over to govt and big business paying for lucrative contracts. You'd be surprised how obscure a forum we'd be mining and selling off. Some people seem to get that it's happening, but I think very few know the extent.