5 ms·
Bias for newness is a bad thing.
by qmr 10y ago
Bias for newness is a bad thing.
- BasDirks 10y agoAdding the year does not devalue the resource. It is quite common for old but cool articles to be reposted.
- FroshKiller 10y agoI understand where your heart is, but as a grocery shopper, I disagree.
- corndoge 10y agoHaving read this several years ago, I think [2013] is appropriate.
- wolfgke 10y agoIf you scroll to the bottom of http://www.linusakesson.net/scene/safevsp/index.php http://www.linusakesson.net/scene/safevsp/index.php you can read "Posted Wednesday 20-Mar-2013 23:23". :-)
- MOARDONGZPLZ 10y agoNot the point. The point is to have it in the title so everyone knows BEFORE clicking.
- mikeash 10y agoAdding the year isn't a criticism, it's simply a marker that this particular article posted on Hacker News isn't new, so you don't get confused reading an article about something that happened years ago.
- dang 10y agoFully agreed. But HN's convention is to append the year to articles from previous years. That isn't a bias for newness, but a bias for oldness—that is, for things that stand the test of time. Historical material is more than welcome on Hacker News. One key function of this site is to distribute historical knowledge into what otherwise tends to be an amnesiac industry/community/society. More historical material, everybody, please! Edit: Speaking of which, if you haven't been following it, Alan Kay has been posting some top-notch comments to HN lately: https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=alankay1 https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=alankay1