https://open.nytimes.com/to-keep-track-of-reddit-discussions-around-new-york-times-content-we-built-a-slack-bot-4d9e6484f8dd

Last fall, my colleague James Robinson (no relation) sent me a direct message on Slack. “Hey old friend. Are you free for a quick question?” he wrote, “I’m looking to rebuild an old project and would love your perspective.” In a previous newsroom analytics role at The New York Times, James had built a suite of incredibly interesting tools that happened to run on a finely-tuned Windows PC under his desk in the newsroom. He wanted to talk about rewriting one of those tools and putting it on a server.

The project was a tool that checked Reddit for conversations around Times content and alerted the newsroom via a Slack channel. Once our writers and editors knew that a story was being discussed, they could get real-time feedback from the Reddit community and even join the conversation. It is a useful tool and James, now the director of international analytics on the newly-created Audience team at The Times, wanted it rebuilt.