No more NYT posts, please!

September 5, 2003 5:29 PM

After the n^th post to a new york times (nytimes.com) site that requires a subscription, which was easily circumvented via searching google news for 3 of the words in the quoted article text from the post, I'm wondering if we can do anything programmatically to solve this. Perhaps search through the posted links, and if nytimes comes up without a partner section of the link, put a small note in red on the preview screen. Or at least add this and the comments we've previously made about posting to low bandwidth sites to the posting guidelines.
posted by woil to feature requests at 5:29 PM (31 comments total)

But then I'll be out of intelligent things to post... (google link here)
posted by woil at 5:30 PM on September 5, 2003

My apologies. I knew there was some Google-related way to read the article without NYTimes.com registration, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. I typed the URL into Google, and I typed the article title into Google, but each time, the link just brought me back to the same page, and I thought it was because I was already registered.

Thanks for putting the Google link into the thread, woil.
posted by Tin Man at 5:34 PM on September 5, 2003

And I didn't post this here to rag on you Tin Man -- I'm reading that article now, and it's a good one... a good post otherwise IMO. But there have been several people doing this in the recent mefi history, and simple instructions on the posting guidelines would help. I searched google for: You're overestimating happiness. (No quotes, just three random words from the text you posted.... for extra fun try typing in every other word from a song on the radio to google, after 5 or 6 it'll pick the lyrics up on the first hit.)
posted by woil at 5:41 PM on September 5, 2003

add this ... to the posting guidelines

That will solve everything, and cure cancer and rid the world of zits as well. ;-P
posted by mischief at 5:44 PM on September 5, 2003

As far as I know, typing any arbitrary PARTNER= will work, and spoofing an existing PARTNER certainly will. So automating this to pretend to be, say, USERLAND, would be very easy, but kind of unethical.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:04 PM on September 5, 2003

why don't we just make a generic MeFi NYTimes login and put it somewhere everyone can see.

seems like the simplest solution to the problem.

seems unlikely that everyone will stop posting a direct link to the nytimes article.

OR, we could firebomb the nytimes office until they take away the stupid free registration thing. which is also a viable plan, imo.
posted by christian at 7:17 PM on September 5, 2003

Does mefi/mefi not work anymore?
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 7:26 PM on September 5, 2003

How much does it cost to partner with the NYT?
posted by inpHilltr8r at 7:26 PM on September 5, 2003

Here's a thought... if you want to read an article in the NY Times you could always just register. It's the friggin' NY Times. They have a clear privacy policy, some of the best content available online and if they want some demographic information what's the big deal?

They're not going to spam you, and if your really worried it's not like it's hard to come by disposable email addresses. You can finagle the url, look for partner content or otherwise subvert the registration each time you want to read a Times story, or you could quit yer bitchin' and eat the damn cookie.
posted by cedar at 7:33 PM on September 5, 2003

Nuts to this. I've found myself enjoying registering. Who will I be on this computer? Millionaire widow? Poor college student? Enjoy your useless database NYTimes.

>How much does it cost to partner with the NYT?

Evidently, not much.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/magazine/07HAPPINESS.html?ex=1063425600&en=b1f1f2e7f12f2863&ei=5062&partner=METAFILTER
posted by skallas at 7:34 PM on September 5, 2003

christian: "why don't we just make a generic MeFi NYTimes login and put it somewhere everyone can see."

You would have Matt publicly violate the TOS of another site to save you the few minutes it takes to register for a free account?
posted by cedar at 7:42 PM on September 5, 2003

i second christian's suggestion, but for all the sites that require registration...why can't we have one group login that's the same for all sites? (if the registration is free of course--i don't think it would be legal on pay sites) -- mefi/mefi for all?

(i have the nyt reg already, but don't really need the chicago trib, or latimes, etc...)
posted by amberglow at 8:05 PM on September 5, 2003

I think that our experience in the past is that the NYT soon recognizes and disables those group logins...

The good news is that the unhappiness you fear you will feel at registering is usually less intense and of shorter duration than you thought it would be.
posted by taz at 9:27 PM on September 5, 2003

They're not going to spam you, and if your really worried it's not like it's hard to come by disposable email addresses.

You don't even need to do that. I registered with the NY Times a couple of years ago now. The username and password are over-simplistic, I gave totally false demographic information, and an invalid e-mail address. Still works fine.
posted by wackybrit at 9:45 PM on September 5, 2003

I'm wondering if we can do anything programmatically to solve this.

Yeah, I totally solved this back in college. I fucking registered. Cost me like $0.00. Have yet to get a spam from them. Wowee. The ol' Grey Lady. She's quite a puzzler. This comes up as a MetaTalk topic twice a year. The answer will never change. Register. Call me if you need help lying on the form.
posted by yerfatma at 9:55 PM on September 5, 2003

I'm sorry yerfatma, but how would that provide any work for mathowie?
posted by timeistight at 11:07 PM on September 5, 2003

A lot of places on the internet think I live in Beverly Hills.
posted by angry modem at 11:11 PM on September 5, 2003

A lot of places on the internet think my name is Beverly Hills.
posted by wendell at 11:29 PM on September 5, 2003

cedar, i'm not suggesting matt do it, and i'm also not suggesting we make a INEWYORKTIMESTHISISEVERYONEATMETAFILTERWITHONEBIGLOGINOKAY username.

we could be a bit creative. the username "cabal" comes to mind.

taz brings up a good point though, they may notice the number of hits that account gets and revoke it. i hadn't thought of that.

clearly we shouldn't be doing anything that's going to get matt any flack whatsoever, as our happiness revolves around his large, angry fist not coming down on our post-happy buttocks.

personally i registered awhile ago, and other people bring up the point that you should just register, and maybe that's the solution. register and join the fun, or don't.
posted by christian at 1:29 AM on September 6, 2003

I never got why people had problems with the NYT registration. Whenever I lose my cookies or get a new computer, I just put in any random BS. I think it's dumb of the NYT to require it, but as long as they make it so easy to lie to them, I don't have a problem taking the 30 seconds it takes to do it.

Now, the LA Times with their forced registration and required e-mail validation and... Yeah well, that's a horse of a different feather. Fuck you LA Times. No ad impressions from me.
posted by willnot at 1:45 AM on September 6, 2003

Previously discussed and hopefully resolved so we can all stop bitching about it and will no longer need to make mention of it in our posts
posted by Galvatron at 7:58 AM on September 6, 2003

You're welcome. (bookmarklet)
posted by majcher at 8:21 AM on September 6, 2003

Links like this:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=futile+pursuit+of+happiness+new+york+times&btnI=pantsfork

will bounce through google, making it every-so-slightly less shady. The trick there is to replace "btnG" (google search) with "btnI" (I'm feeling lucky). The pantsfork is optional.
posted by duckstab at 9:28 AM on September 6, 2003

(of course, google could at any time stop allowing btnI in news-dot, afaik it's not actually mentioned anywhere, so don't rely on that Working Forever. They could also stop doing the whole search engine thing and go into chicken farming instead.)
posted by duckstab at 9:32 AM on September 6, 2003

The pantsfork is optional.

OK, aside from the fact that sadly that statement makes me smile like a 12-year-old hearing the phrase homosapien, does the pansfork actually do anything in the URL? Is there any reason I would opt to include or not include it?
posted by willnot at 1:54 PM on September 6, 2003

does the pansfork actually do anything in the URL? Is there any reason I would opt to include or not include it?

Nope. It would normally say "I'm+Feeling+Lucky" there, but it doesn't matter what you use. You could even just end it after "btnI=", but thats no fun.
posted by duckstab at 2:35 PM on September 6, 2003

Just out of curiousity, why is it unethical to have a group login, but not to lie on the registration?
posted by electro at 7:14 PM on September 6, 2003

quonsar, your pantsfork is calling.

Is that a pantsfork, or are utensil?

/fark highbrow=on
posted by dhartung at 12:23 AM on September 7, 2003

People have been using cypherpunks/cypherpunks or cypherpunks/writecode for years. Often the account will become disabled, maybe someone changes the password on it just to be annoying, but it's pretty much the canonical username/password for "why not just have one well-known login that we all use".
posted by hattifattener at 1:13 AM on September 7, 2003

Is that a pantsfork, or are utensil?

if this lake effect thing doesn't work out for you dan, there'll always be a room for you back here at the lost gerbil tavern.



LOOK ANGRY MODEM! I'M PANTSFORKBOMBING MY TAILOR'S IMAC!


LOOK ANGRY MODEM! I'M PANTSFORKBOMBING MY TAILOR'S IMAC!


posted by quonsar at 1:35 AM on September 7, 2003

MetaFilter: very easy, but kind of unethical.
posted by dg at 5:34 PM on September 7, 2003