Hacker News Reader

Comment by sireat | Hacker News Reader

This "buyer" is not going to buy any of the books.

The trick only works because the book is considered published yet it is out of stock so has to be back ordered.

And these back orders still count for the NYT bestseller list.

My guess is they somehow triggered some sort of last second revision for their own book at the publisher thus pausing the printing.

So the book is technically published and available in various catalogs yet you can't actually buy it. You can only back-order it.

I assume if you could actually order the book the "buyer" would have to shell out some cash.

An additional trick is that the "buyer" is being careful not to trigger bulk buying clause for each store.

It is basically the click farm equivalent online.

View on HN

When the Ch\wrch of Sc\w+nt\wl\wgy did this they actually had their cultists pay for the books. Most of them were then sold to second-hand book stores.

Because money actually came through to them, Waldenbooks and B. Dalton were happy to order enough to keep up with the fake demand.

> the Ch\wrch of Sc\w+nt\wl\wgy

What's going on here?

It's regex-encoded (for a lack of better term). \w means any letter (or number, or underscore), the + after the \w means one or more repetitions of it.

I believe it's supposed to decode as "Church of Scientology"

You can get into trouble if you speak ill of the Ch*rch in public. This hinders discoverability.

Hey Church of Scientology, somebody here is claiming you are fraudsters gaming the bestseller lists. I'll add my own opinion that you're an abusive cult dead set on parting fools and their money, that your "church" was invented by a guy alternating between nights on uppers and downers, and your myth of aliens on DC-10s doing something around a vulcano (can't remember the details) is pure fantasy.

If you want to sue me, you should be able to find my details if you click on my username. Have at it!

Fuck the Church of Scientology. I know they're nasty motherfuckers, but if nothing else they don't have the resources to personally mess with every person anywhere on the internet who speaks ill of them, not since Chanology multiplied that number by orders of magnitude. Don't let them scare you into censoring yourself, even in such a minor way.

Trouble with who? The Church? I'm familiar with their weirdo bullying tactics but you can't really take them seriously - they have no power.

There was a time in the 90s when Scientology was the main target of internet censorship, and they (mis)used copyright law to hinder criticism and to hide what they did.

South Park broadcast all the details of Xenu in 2005, which made it much easier for other former Scientologists (e.g. Kate Bornstein) to talk about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_the_Internet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapped_in_the_Closet_(South_P...

They filed enough law suits against people in the IRS to have their millions in back taxes waived and granted non-profit church status.

They bullied the IRS.

It seems that violent aggressive growth tactics are common in start-up religions.

Their lawyers have power. They've killed people too, though that was years ago.

Imagine a DDOS attack on your life. Don't underestimate the cumulative effect of fanatics with little individual 'power', intent on punishing you...

The Church of scientology is a shitty cult that rips off it's members.

Come at me scientologists.

Likely an attempt to obscure the phrase from search.

Folks here in LA will give you "shut up right now" looks if you speak ill of the CoS in a public place.

Hardly. The CoS is like LA's version of the Amish. There aren't many of them and, much like wild animals, they're more scared of you than you are of them. The most exciting thing they ever do is pay for some floats in a Christmas parade once a year. I think they had a Garfield float last year.

Because 0xChurch0f5c13n70l06y isn't valid hex.

> The trick only works because the book is considered published yet it is out of stock so has to be back ordered. And these back orders still count for the NYT bestseller list.

The NYT says that "Sales are defined as completed transactions by individuals"[1]. Either you're mistaken about the trick that was used or the NYT is lying about their methodology.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology/

It would appear they are lying, as they won a court case by arguing they were not. So either way someone is blowing hot air, and either way that someone is the NYT

Reply on news.ycombinator.com