Is there something about the Equation dump that is not relevant to HN? Seems that most stories related to it are rapidly flagged off the front page, despite obvious interest.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12290623
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12297530
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12292703
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12300947
HN's moderation practice around this sort of thing is well established: once a major story has had a major thread, the test for new submissions becomes "does this article add significant new information?" If yes, then the post is a new story in its own right and it makes sense to have a new discussion. If not, we treat it as a repost and downweight it.
We came up with this after the Great Snowden Flood of 2013, and it has held up well in practice. It allows for long-running stories to have repeated discussion while protecting the front page from being overwhelmed by follow-up posts that don't add anything new. The latter is important because major stories attract lots of copycat articles.