4 ms·

I'm interested to know what causes submissions like this - content that is years old and posted with no context - to hit the first page on a random day.

dang 4y ago
Sometimes it's people who feel like posting oldies/perennials/classics, and sometimes it's people running across a thing for the first time. We've had to learn not to crack down on these too heavily because there's always an up-and-coming cohort of new users who've never seen them before, and HN should be a place to run across them. Once a year seems to be an acceptable maximum rate (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).
- KennyFromIT 4y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. Now for my next question: Out of all the other posts out there right now, how on Earth did my little inquiry catch your eyes? ;-)
  - dang 4y ago
    Purest randomness.
- kretaceous 4y ago
  Hey dang. I have a question too. Does it really need a 2011 tag? I thought only blog posts and news articles got year tags. 12FA is guidelines website that is mostly timeless. What's the criteria for a year tag?
  - gunapologist99 4y ago
    The year tag is also very useful for when you might have read it the first time, and want to know that it hasn't changed, or if you don't need/want to re-read it (while still participating in the discussion). It's also interesting to see how things have aged.
  - pvg 4y ago
    The year tags can and do go on anything, they're more for the readers than as some sort of commentary on the timeliness or lack thereof of the content. I think lots of people just find them handy to easily distinguish recent from not-so-recent stuff, as a very basic use case.
    - onionisafruit 4y ago
      I’ve been curious what the oldest year tag applied on HN is.
      - Tomte 4y ago
        Mine is this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005431 (1539).
koolba 4y ago
Many of us recall with great fondness the first time we read about 12 factor apps. In particular, those of us that had been working on systems like this, but hadn’t codified it with explicit guidelines. It just made sense. The pleasantness of things just working consistently from scratch on a brand new server. Replacing the concept of pet servers with cattle. It’s all related. I’m sure every time this makes the front page it reaches at least one fresh pair of eyes. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- linkdd 4y ago
  Is HN a search engine for xkcd? Honestly people, do you have them indexed somewhere? I'm amazed by your ability to find the appropriate xkcd whenever it's needed. Me, I'd have to spend at least half an hour on Google trying to find it, and then give up or see that someone else already posted it. I love this community.
  - tim-- 4y ago
    Some xkcd comics are classics - my gotos are the one about ISO dates (https://xkcd.com/1179/ https://xkcd.com/1179/) and password strength (https://xkcd.com/936/ https://xkcd.com/936/). Both of these were found by search Google 'xkcd (dates|passwords)', and having them be the first result. Explain XKCD is great if you know roughly what topic was covered by a comic, but can't quite find the URL. https://www.explainxkcd.com/ https://www.explainxkcd.com/
    - linkdd 4y ago
      > Explain XKCD is great Thanks for the tip, I added it to my favorites. Could it be used to implement a Slack bot similar to /giphy?
      - erik_seaberg 4y ago
        That exists: https://relevant-xkcd.com/slack https://relevant-xkcd.com/slack
    - deleted 4y ago
runeb 4y ago
From a historical standpoint I would think it is interesting to someone who may have come into the profession in the last decade to know more about why the practises we today take for granted and as obvious came about.
breckenedge 4y ago
The account “tosh” does this pretty regularly.
- KennyFromIT 4y ago
  Yes, I've noticed this as well.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tosh 4y ago
In this specific case: I stumbled upon Craig's tweet/poll yesterday https://twitter.com/craigkerstiens/status/1519496090646589440 https://twitter.com/craigkerstiens/status/151949609064658944... The killer feature of Heroku was/is: * git push heroku main * Review apps * Heroku postgres * Add-ons & this reply https://twitter.com/srinathkrishna/status/1519496730202361856 https://twitter.com/srinathkrishna/status/151949673020236185... I'd say the 12factor manifesto was the biggest thing to come out of Heroku. There's a lot of wisdom in there.

dang 4y ago

Sometimes it's people who feel like posting oldies/perennials/classics, and sometimes it's people running across a thing for the first time. We've had to learn not to crack down on these too heavily because there's always an up-and-coming cohort of new users who've never seen them before, and HN should be a place to run across them. Once a year seems to be an acceptable maximum rate (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).

KennyFromIT 4y ago
Thanks for the explanation. Now for my next question: Out of all the other posts out there right now, how on Earth did my little inquiry catch your eyes? ;-)
- dang 4y ago
  Purest randomness.
kretaceous 4y ago
Hey dang. I have a question too. Does it really need a 2011 tag? I thought only blog posts and news articles got year tags. 12FA is guidelines website that is mostly timeless. What's the criteria for a year tag?
- gunapologist99 4y ago
  The year tag is also very useful for when you might have read it the first time, and want to know that it hasn't changed, or if you don't need/want to re-read it (while still participating in the discussion). It's also interesting to see how things have aged.
- pvg 4y ago
  The year tags can and do go on anything, they're more for the readers than as some sort of commentary on the timeliness or lack thereof of the content. I think lots of people just find them handy to easily distinguish recent from not-so-recent stuff, as a very basic use case.
  - onionisafruit 4y ago
    I’ve been curious what the oldest year tag applied on HN is.
    - Tomte 4y ago
      Mine is this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005431 (1539).

koolba 4y ago

Many of us recall with great fondness the first time we read about 12 factor apps. In particular, those of us that had been working on systems like this, but hadn’t codified it with explicit guidelines. It just made sense. The pleasantness of things just working consistently from scratch on a brand new server. Replacing the concept of pet servers with cattle. It’s all related. I’m sure every time this makes the front page it reaches at least one fresh pair of eyes. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

linkdd 4y ago
Is HN a search engine for xkcd? Honestly people, do you have them indexed somewhere? I'm amazed by your ability to find the appropriate xkcd whenever it's needed. Me, I'd have to spend at least half an hour on Google trying to find it, and then give up or see that someone else already posted it. I love this community.
- tim-- 4y ago
  Some xkcd comics are classics - my gotos are the one about ISO dates (https://xkcd.com/1179/ https://xkcd.com/1179/) and password strength (https://xkcd.com/936/ https://xkcd.com/936/). Both of these were found by search Google 'xkcd (dates|passwords)', and having them be the first result. Explain XKCD is great if you know roughly what topic was covered by a comic, but can't quite find the URL. https://www.explainxkcd.com/ https://www.explainxkcd.com/
  - linkdd 4y ago
    > Explain XKCD is great Thanks for the tip, I added it to my favorites. Could it be used to implement a Slack bot similar to /giphy?
    - erik_seaberg 4y ago
      That exists: https://relevant-xkcd.com/slack https://relevant-xkcd.com/slack
  - deleted 4y ago

runeb 4y ago

From a historical standpoint I would think it is interesting to someone who may have come into the profession in the last decade to know more about why the practises we today take for granted and as obvious came about.

breckenedge 4y ago

The account “tosh” does this pretty regularly.

KennyFromIT 4y ago
Yes, I've noticed this as well.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tosh 4y ago

In this specific case: I stumbled upon Craig's tweet/poll yesterday https://twitter.com/craigkerstiens/status/1519496090646589440 https://twitter.com/craigkerstiens/status/151949609064658944... The killer feature of Heroku was/is: * git push heroku main * Review apps * Heroku postgres * Add-ons & this reply https://twitter.com/srinathkrishna/status/1519496730202361856 https://twitter.com/srinathkrishna/status/151949673020236185... I'd say the 12factor manifesto was the biggest thing to come out of Heroku. There's a lot of wisdom in there.