[pierrefar]

I know I should get outraged and amused by this incompetence, but this is just sad.

The NYT company invested in Auttomatic (Wordpress makers; see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/business/media/23nytimes.h... ) and they got FiveThirtyEight, a blog, under their wing. Clearly they're thinking about what's next in media and experimenting, and then they turn around and do this mindless move. This kind of confusion makes me sad because it's a sign there is still a lot of inertia against their necessary evolution.

[logic]

You haven't seen anything yet. They'll be moving their content behind a pay-wall in 2011:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/media/21times.htm...

This move (going after perceived commercial use of their public RSS feeds) is actually consistent with their apparent current survival strategy.