Ask YC: Duplicate Posts | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Duplicate Posts

14 pointsizak3019 comments

Ok folks,

I'm pretty tired of people complaining about dupes that are more than a couple of days apart.

Discussions change, perspectives change. There is serious value in re-asking a question 2,4,10 weeks out. I've even considered re-asking my own questions before.

While it is nice to have a listing of posts that have talked about something before, please don't patronize people who do ask questions that have been asked here before.

So, my question:

Can we specify some civil way of 1)Telling someone their post is a dupe 2)Pointing out that search options do exist 3)Continuing on with their discussion and anwering their question as asked.

Thoughts?

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Perhaps we should try to convince pg to add a link to searchyc.com in the top menu?

Someone posts a dupe, I post a link to the first article and like magic, it disappears.

That always seemed polite enough to me.

in addition to searchyc, there's xirium , Goog custom search

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=018342486690831005521:1iq2...

http://www.ycombinator.search.xirium.com/

oh, yea, how about putting up a FAQ wiki somewhere?

Here's some basic categories:

- what programming language should i start / learn next?

- what editor, VCS, bug tracker

- what profilers /debuggers / unit testing / BDD shd i use?

- how do i deal with RSI/ wrist pain / eye strain?

- what hosts / colo / DNS host / domain registrar / host pinging service do you reommend?

- what laptop / keyboard / mouse / display shd i get? where can i buy it if i live in _______

- what virtualization shd i use?

That is a great idea. A 'Best of YC' wiki

you mean this?

http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive

1) link to the previous posts

2) http://www.searchyc.com

3) continue on with your discussion

I'd like to see more technical solutions to the dupe problem. For instance, if someone feels the need to start the "what is the value of a college degree" discussion again, the site could present them with a McDonald's job application in convenient PDF format, then redirect back to reddit.

BTW, I second this idea. Its way better to give someone a little leeway and help them get the answer than to just shoot them down. Great suggestion.

What about allowing users to submit "related links" that will appear at the top once a certain submission threshold has been reached? It would give your active commenters a way to separate "good" dupes from "bad" dupes while at the same time enriching your passive readers' experience.

There are some topics that come up so often though that it gets a little old over time and where the answers don't significantly change on a weekly basis. Favorites are:

- How do you stay motivated?

- Which books should I read?

- What music do you listen to while coding?

- What's the best web development framework?

If the question was, "What do you think is the hottest startup right now?" that would have a higher delta. I don't think most of the time these questions are reposted because the posting user wants an update -- usually they're by someone that's only been in the community for a couple weeks. Hence I think it'd be nice to make a search tool more visible so that people could more easily check.

The total benefit of dupes well outweighs the cost. Maybe having a list of "related YC stories" on the side might be a good idea?

on #1) Asking a question again is fine, the problem (IMO) is that the poster might not realize it is a dupe. So when someone posts a dupe, IMO, they should be told it's a dupe (and then the previous date/time posted), and let them decide whether or not to post it.

Search options exist? Is that in some karma wonderland toolbar that I don't have? :)

Yeah, where is this alleged search option?

well often enough a query like "site:news.ycombinator.com techcrunch" on Google works for me

i am surprised nobody write a booklet for the either ;)

That actually works surprisingly poorly for me, especially when compared to searchyc.com

http://searchyc.com

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