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Ask HN: When is a [dupe] not a dupe?
For what it's worth, it seems to me that posts are being marked [dupes] unhelpfully. For example, recent posts linking to articles about Beto O'Rourke's hacker past are being marked as [dupe] even though they may offer unique analysis or perspective. The interesting thing is not the report of what has happened, but the interpretation or analysis. Varieties of valuable interpretation/analysis are sometimes missed when posts that are only superficially related by subject matter are marked [dupes]. Not a huge deal obviously, but HN might be helped by a slightly more judicious use of the [dupe] marker.
- wmf 8y agoFor this reason I sometimes wish that multiple links could be merged into the same thread.
- dang 8y agoThe [dupe] tag is mostly put on by moderators. The intention is to indicate that a story has already received front-page attention on HN within the last year or so (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html). Articles are considered the same story if they don't contain significant new information compared to the previous discussion. This is a matter of interpretation, and no doubt we make the wrong call sometimes. If you notice a case of that, your best bet is to email us at hn@ycombinator.com. We always look, and often change. p.s. I couldn't resist editing your title from "When is a dupe not a [dupe]?" because it seems to me that that asks the opposite question :)