
Ask HN: Have the Reposting Guidelines Been Changed? - jeffreyrogers
Over the past few days I&#x27;ve attempted to submit several links to HN that seem like they&#x27;d be of general interest, but I&#x27;ve found that HN won&#x27;t let me since they were posted before.<p>Obviously no one wants to see the same thing over and over again on the front page, however, the previous posts have all been in the past, typically over a year prior, and the most recent time (and the reason for this post) was 1486 days, or 4 years 
ago.<p>I haven&#x27;t run into this sort of thing before, so I was wondering if this is a recent change or just something I hadn&#x27;t noticed?
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dang
It's explained in the FAQ:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).
If a story hasn't had significant attention in about a year, a small number of
reposts is ok. HN will let you repost it if you use a slightly different URL.
Also, please don't delete and repost.

We're working on a better de-dupe system but it will be a while before it's
out.

(In the future, please email hn@ycombinator.com with such questions, as the
guidelines ask.)

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jcr
It would help if you gave examples of the links you were trying to repost. If
you looked under "saved stories" in your profile, you'll find the stuff you
submitted as new but instead up-voted since it was previously posted. BTW,
only you can access your own "saved-stories" link or I would have looked up
the submitted urls and discussions myself. Yes, both would be helpful.

In general, if something was submitted, well up-voted, and discussed, then
it's pretty much done since there's really no sense in reopening the topic
again. You're better off (and hn is better off) if you go find something new
to submit. When you find something that you think might be new and good for
hn, then check to make sure it hasn't already been posted by using Algolia (HN
Search on the bottom of all pages).

For example, I was considering posting something about "numenta.org" since to
me it's really interesting. I did a search on Algolia, and it seems it's
already been done to death on HN, so I didn't post it.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=#!/story/sort_by_date/prefix/0/num...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=#!/story/sort_by_date/prefix/0/numenta)

If there's a new development in something that had been posted and discussed
before, I'll often put a link to the previous discussion as a regular comment
on the new story, for example:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8644448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8644448)

There is always new and interesting stuff out there, so there's seldom any
reason to repost old stuff that's already been done and discussed. I actually
have a text file with a backlog of stuff I've found that might interest others
on HN, but I should not post all of it as soon as I find it. I want to avoid
filling up the /newest queue and avoid having the main /news page filled up
with stuff that _I think is interesting_ so I wait to post more stuff until
the stuff I've already posted has made it's merry way along. At times, it
might take a day or so for something popular to drop of the main /news page,
but this gives everyone else a better chance of seeing the stuff that _they
find interesting_ to get discussed.

I can't speak to the question of "official repost policy" but when there's so
much new and interesting stuff out there waiting to be found and submitted,
your time is better spent finding and sharing it.

