common un/pwd for nyt?

June 26, 2001 1:47 PM

Another NY Times suggestion...

Opensewer has a publicly available login and password to view articles they think are of interest. Is this feasible for us? I know there haven't been a lot of NYTimes posts lately, and someone mentioned in a previous MetaTalk thread that NYT might crack down on group logins. But since channel.nytimes seems to be closed for the time being, is this a possibility? Something like login: Metafilter, pwd: A-list...
posted by starvingartist to feature requests at 1:47 PM (6 comments total)

great idea, sa!

i wonder if it might be possible to send the user/pwd in the URL string--that is, if the nyt's CGI is set up to use it that way. that would be ideal, because then matt could hack nyt URL's to include the common user/pwd info.
posted by moz at 2:15 PM on June 26, 2001

No need. Enter it once, it stays in a cookie forever. Not worth Matt expending any effort.
posted by kindall at 3:57 PM on June 26, 2001

All you have to do is sign up for a login, then publicize it, or put it in the URL directly. No reason it has to be an "official" MeFi thing, and no reason it couldn't be done separately for each URL posted. I think we've already seen the unintentional problems that can be caused by scriptishly auto-hacking URLs here. I don't think we should go that route again. I'd be interested to hear what Matt has to say, though.
posted by rodii at 6:17 PM on June 26, 2001

when I post a NYT link on my own site, I always follow it with [NY Times: rebeccas_pocket, password: pocket]; and with all modesty, I believe that I pioneered that approach.

a writer from the times told me in march that they were thinking of scrapping the whole login thing anyway, since they don't really do anything with the data - he was a freelancer, does that make him less reliable?

you can use mine, or anyone can just make one and then put it in the link and we can all use it forever after. do that many people really object to creating a login? - rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 7:38 PM on June 26, 2001

that's the best idea, rebecca. If people are posting stuff from the NYT, it's safe to assume they have a login, so why not let others use it? If I ever post from the NYT I'll be sure to include my login.
posted by starvingartist at 6:17 AM on June 27, 2001

Instead of circumventing NYT's very meager attempt at selling slightly targeted advertising, I urge everyone who wants to read their articles make their own account.

Support free content as much as possible or there will not be free content.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 11:16 PM on June 29, 2001