Hacker News Reader

Comment by byrneseyeview | Hacker News Reader

This is offtopic, but: why / how do you find so many duplicate articles? When I saw that this was posted, I was immediately pretty sure you'd leave a comment linking to past posts. Are you doing this manually, or do you have a script (that, e.g., checks the 'new' page and searches for the title and URL on searchyc?)

View on HN

Why and how are different. "Why" is because I prefer to see discussions linked together rather than spread. In this case there is some previous discussion (although not a lot) and anyone coming across this and finding it interesting might find the previous discussion worth reading also. They could search for it themselves, but it's easy for me to do, and one person's work (mine) saving lots of people work seems a good trade-off.

"How" is different. I just tend to remember stuff like this easily, so I know if something's duplicated. A quick search will usually find it, and that often turns up other stuff that I find interesting in its own right. I haven't scripted this, I just remember stuff.

That also feeds back into the "Why." I've found many things of value (to me) on HN because an article that was vaguely interesting prompted a search for an earlier duplicate, and that search turned up related, more interesting material. Having found any duplicates I then put in the comment to help save other people some time because, well, why not?

However, I'm pretty much considering stopping. Although I'm not really bothered about karma, the recent instance of PG linking the ability to vote to one's average karma has made me re-evaluate what I'm doing. Although it's only approximate, clearly "karma" embodies an indication of the behavior PG wants. Flagging duplicates like this drags down my average karma because it rarely gets up-voted and occasionally gets down-voted. That suggests that, in some sense, PG doesn't want me to do it, even if I think it saves people time and helps to cross-connect related discussions.

If you'd like to discuss this more, feel free to email me.

What I don't understand (coming from communities where duplicate posts are simply killed) is why this manner of handling is favored. I do understand that the community cycles in more people who haven't seen all the older links, and so it's nice to present them again for their sake every once in a while. However, if that's the goal, why start with a fresh discussion thread every time? Why not just put the old one on the front page again, together with the discussion attached to it? Presumably the comments haven't rotted.

With new times come new perspectives. The downside is that new people don't know that the same-old, same-old points have already been made argued to death already. But what if they have a new insight, or times have changed and the old ideas are no longer relevant? If they see pages of discussion, they might be suckered into thinking their new thoughts are irrelevant, when the opposite may be true.

In general, I like starting over with a blank page if enough time has passed that we will have new faces and changed circumstances. Two weeks is not enough, but a blog post from two years ago might be interesting to re-examine with fresh eyes.

I think that a site like HN works best if you do what you think is right and ignore what PG wants on a case-by-case basis. If overall your actions are getting downvoted, then clearly there is a fit problem between you and HN, and either you must change, HN must change, or you should go elsewhere.

However if overall you are getting positive karma, then overall there is a good fit and don't worry about the odd bit of behaviour that gets negative karma. Unless it's something specifically discouraged, I think you should let it slide.

FWIW, I don't think karma reflects utility for something like this. I just saw someone post "[2005]" as a comment on another post, and it got some upmods. Obviously that's helpful in a certain way, but I didn't bother to upmod it myself. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate it.

So... tl;dr; version: Rock on!

To allay your concerns, I almost always upvote links to previous submissions on HN. I make them, and find such links valuable, so I upvote them when someone else makes them.

P.S. I find the best way to find previous HN threads that I remember is a site-restricted Google search with a few keywords, e.g.,

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+p...

"... I find the best way to find previous HN threads that I remember is a site-restricted Google search ..."

Way better ~ http://searchyc.com/previously+submitted?sort=by_date

I find both Google and searchyc useful. When one doesn't find what I'm looking for, the other usually does.

I make a practice of executing such a search before I submit a link. Of course, for me it's a VERY occasional practice. ;-)

Separately, would it be useful if HN had a sort presentation that listed posts/threads recently commented upon -- perhaps further weighted by post score -- as opposed to just recent comments (where the quantity combined with flatness of presentation quickly overwhelms me)? Of course, one would have trouble finding the new comment within the old thread -- particularly active ones -- unless there was further utility added to locate it within the thread of conversation of such a post. (If it was in response to a parent comment, it would not sort to the top.)

At which point, the current presentation paradigm for the site is starting to change significantly. Representing both a lot of work for PG, and an open-ended question as to the effects upon the community dynamics.

So... perhaps we are better off with what we have. If a page/topic is brought up again after after a significant period of time (more than a few days), it is handled as a new discussion. With thoughtful people like Rider... perhaps citing older posts/threads for further reference.

Because you're considering stopping, I wanted to say that I find this sort of post very helpful. Many times I've found much more interesting discussion on previous submissions because of you, or learned something I otherwise would have missed. My upvotes apparently are discarded by PG's algorithm, but if I could I would contribute karma - this is behavior I greatly appreciate and would like to support.

Thank you. Comments like yours, and all the upvotes for the discussion, are being taken into consideration, and your feedback is appreciated. If you had an email address in your profile I'd've said so directly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com