You mean Scooter and Sam? Cause that's the only thing I can think of that made the transition from magazine to 1up. I worked there too... They kept Scooter and Sam. Sam eventually left anyway.

Isn't it a lot more likely that these are simply people who happen to read enough of those particular sites and post to HN to turn up on in a chart like this?

There's not enough data points to point to any kind of concerted effort by these sites over the span of years.

And even _if_ that were the case. Suppose someone affiliated with these sites is posting 1-2 links a week, that's hardly flooding the system. There's still the voting system, right? Good articles float towards the top. The new submissions page isn't jam packed with dozens of articles a day from these sites, is it?