

Ask HN: Is the current duplicate story handling hindering discussion?  - spooneybarger

I sometimes find blog posts, stories etc that I find interesting and go to submit them only to see they were submitted earlier and never got any traction. And sometimes, those earlier submissions were done at times when most of the HN audience wasn't around. Basically, a potentially interesting topic that could have generated interesting comments and discussion is forever buried because it was submitted at a low activity time and never got any traction.<p>My thought, would it not make sense when someone submits a duplicate that is far enough away from the original, but still within a reasonable time frame like more than 8 hours since the previous but less than 2 days since the original, to just put it back in the new list and see if it picks up traction at this different time of day, day of week etc. Then good stories originally submitted on weekends, middle of the night where most HN readers are, etc aren't buried just based on the happenstance of when they are submitted.<p>Just a thought. Would love to hear your ideas.
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petercooper
I agree with your ideas and observations in your second paragraph. Indeed,
there seems to be a block of time each day when links are more likely to go
big on HN - these then ride out the small hours while otherwise good content
floats on by in /new.

