3 ms·

This was posted previously and drew a mountain (793) of comments [0], including mine [1]. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombina

This was posted previously and drew a mountain (793) of comments [0], including mine [1]. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7235079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7235079

Namrog84 13y ago
Does hacker news not flag/block duplicate posts urls. Especially when first one was clearly recognized?
- brokentone 13y ago
  It does, but it uses a very strict match. You'll notice that the first submission uses a trailing slash whereas this one does not.
- ColinWright 13y ago
  The URLs are different: 7233730 : https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ [0] 7496137 : https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 [1] HN's dup detector is crude and simplistic. Suggestions over the years to help fix it have been ignored, and efforts to help cross-link items have been lauded by some, and vilified by others who somehow seem to see the repetition as a feature. I guess that since it's documented (many times over, again, discussions repeated ad nauseam) it's definitely a feature rather than a bug. Largely, I've given up. Let the discussions repeat the same points over and over - most don't care, others don't even notice. An engineer at heart, I find it almost physically painful to see such inefficiencies and loss of opportunity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496137
  - revelation 13y ago
    I think the duplicate detector was recently tweaked, at least the query string trick no longer worked for me.
  - blisterpeanuts 13y ago
    I agree... and yet... here we are! In a way, though, news is a cyclical thing. It comes up again and again. Maybe it's a good thing in this case; seems to be an instance of police brutality and wrongful arrest, so the more exposure, the better. This story also brings out a couple of bits of information that we didn't get last time around, more of the police point of view.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Not all duplication is bad. If you live to be long enough, you'll typically spot a cycle of stories carried in the mainstream media: local media's recycling of "places to visit" and "quaint historical anecdotes" items (new to me in my youth, somewhat less so in my dotage), the very, very predictable seasonal trend, particularly in consumer business stories around holidays, election cycles, etc. In the case of HN, there are submissions I've seen which have gone down with no appreciable comment which, one or two or four years later, may well deserve a re-hearing. At the same time, you'll get iterations on a specific theme (a recent instance being 2^11 stories) which, while different in source, are often largely similar in content and significance. HN penalizes the former while passing on the latter. I'd prefer that reversed. I've grown increasingly impressed with reddit's "related" link giving access to other discussions on a particular URL or topic. Actually, I've been growing increasingly impressed with reddit in general.
- lotharbot 13y ago
  The URLs are different. In addition, HN intentionally allows duplicates after a certain time period -- I think it's 30 days. The idea is that the same information can become interesting and relevant again, either because of new circumstances [0], or to a new audience, or to an audience for which it has fallen out of memory. (I leave it to the reader to determine whether this article has passed the "interesting and relevant again" threshold.) [0] the best example I can think of: some of the things aaronsw posted to HN prior to his suicide became front page HN submissions just after. New information changed our perspective on his writings.

Namrog84 13y ago

Does hacker news not flag/block duplicate posts urls. Especially when first one was clearly recognized?

brokentone 13y ago
It does, but it uses a very strict match. You'll notice that the first submission uses a trailing slash whereas this one does not.
ColinWright 13y ago
The URLs are different: 7233730 : https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ [0] 7496137 : https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 [1] HN's dup detector is crude and simplistic. Suggestions over the years to help fix it have been ignored, and efforts to help cross-link items have been lauded by some, and vilified by others who somehow seem to see the repetition as a feature. I guess that since it's documented (many times over, again, discussions repeated ad nauseam) it's definitely a feature rather than a bug. Largely, I've given up. Let the discussions repeat the same points over and over - most don't care, others don't even notice. An engineer at heart, I find it almost physically painful to see such inefficiencies and loss of opportunity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496137
- revelation 13y ago
  I think the duplicate detector was recently tweaked, at least the query string trick no longer worked for me.
- blisterpeanuts 13y ago
  I agree... and yet... here we are! In a way, though, news is a cyclical thing. It comes up again and again. Maybe it's a good thing in this case; seems to be an instance of police brutality and wrongful arrest, so the more exposure, the better. This story also brings out a couple of bits of information that we didn't get last time around, more of the police point of view.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Not all duplication is bad. If you live to be long enough, you'll typically spot a cycle of stories carried in the mainstream media: local media's recycling of "places to visit" and "quaint historical anecdotes" items (new to me in my youth, somewhat less so in my dotage), the very, very predictable seasonal trend, particularly in consumer business stories around holidays, election cycles, etc. In the case of HN, there are submissions I've seen which have gone down with no appreciable comment which, one or two or four years later, may well deserve a re-hearing. At the same time, you'll get iterations on a specific theme (a recent instance being 2^11 stories) which, while different in source, are often largely similar in content and significance. HN penalizes the former while passing on the latter. I'd prefer that reversed. I've grown increasingly impressed with reddit's "related" link giving access to other discussions on a particular URL or topic. Actually, I've been growing increasingly impressed with reddit in general.
lotharbot 13y ago
The URLs are different. In addition, HN intentionally allows duplicates after a certain time period -- I think it's 30 days. The idea is that the same information can become interesting and relevant again, either because of new circumstances [0], or to a new audience, or to an audience for which it has fallen out of memory. (I leave it to the reader to determine whether this article has passed the "interesting and relevant again" threshold.) [0] the best example I can think of: some of the things aaronsw posted to HN prior to his suicide became front page HN submissions just after. New information changed our perspective on his writings.