Yet this post is currently on the front page and the comment I wrote claims to be from an hour ago?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21168100
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20169818
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19774614
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380
Yes, it's bad and confusing, but less so than not doing it, because if you place a 2-day old submission on the front page, the thread fills up with "how is this 2 days old and on the front page?"
Maybe there's a better solution but we don't know yet what it is.
I'm guessing it's a kludge to implement the second chance behavior, but maybe there's a more benign kludge, or a practical more proper way to do it.
Reframing it: Are you pleased you were able to accurately predict something that ended up being of interest to a great many people? You deserve to feel good about this! In the end, the thing got shared as intended. This is success.
At least, this is what I've learned to tell myself ;).
HN points are probably the most worthless form of currency, except for maybe crypto.
I email Dang (hn@ycombinator.com) when I'm confused or unclear on site behavior. He's awfully generous to humor me.