Hacker News Reader

What is the age of a Hacker News post before discussion dies on average? It seems like having a feed for any new comments on posts posts older than that age would allow anyone interested in longer-term discussion to opt-in without requiring any additional features.

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From my anecdotal observations after using this site for over a decade, it’s about a day, sometimes two, and very rarely longer than that.

The whole design very much discourages longer discussion. Even if you want it digging to nth page of your comments just to check whether you got answers gets annoying real quick.

There is a timeout after which you can't respond to a comment. So old threads don't die only because people lose interest, but also because HN doesn't allow them to continue the discussions anymore.

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