Is a list of the essays the best way to make your point? The value in a post on the front page isn't just "Oh look, an essay from Paul Graham I haven't seen before." It's also in the inevitable discussion.
If you want to ask people not to submit old content, I'd suggest going beyond the list and coming up with a compelling reason why old content being reposted and upvoted and discussed vigorously is detrimental to the HN community as a whole and not simply annoying to a few old hands.
Some of that discussion is a complete retread, of course, but some of it is brand-spanking new and reflects the fact that both the people and the times have changed, so the ideas will also change.
I understand your point. And yes, the discussion that follows each pg repost adds some totally new perspectives/comment.
But then why only stop at pg articles? people should be encouraged to repost all the nice material from past. Since HN is active since years, there would be so much interesting stuff to repost.
I do not understand the approach that when a newbie submits something (useful nevertheless) without knowing its a repost, lot of people go on flagging and commenting its a repost. Why different treatment to pg articles?
I never flag reposts of any kind. But that's just me, I can't explain why someone would flag a repost unless the original was also flag-worthy.
Personally, I see the mentioning of dupes as an indication that something interesting is going on. The comment "Dup." followed by a link gives people the opportunity to revisit the old discussion, and I see that as useful.
FWIW, I usually don't revisit the old discussion. The point of a resubmission to me is to get new eyeballs and new ideas. If I revisit the old discussion I'm pushing my brain down well-trodden paths.
The question of whether resubmissions are a bad idea comes up from time to time. It's just as interesting to see new perspectives on this subject as it is to see new perspectives on old posts. You can't have one (new discussions about old posts) without the other (new discussions about old complaints) :-)
1. That's not entirely true. Other old stuff also gets reposted sometimes.
2. It speaks to the quality of PG's essays.
3. There is definitely some thoughtless fanboy upvoting just because it's PG. If that's what you are trying to reduce, that's great. But meta posts are hardly the way to go.
Some of those essays are good enough that they're worth resubmitting every year or so, both for people who haven't read them yet, and to see what new points come out in the discussion.
I would agree. I've been a lurker on HN for a couple years and the recent PG post about creating wealth was new to me. It was a wonderful post, old as it may be, and much more useful to me (a developer) than multiple posts about another acquisition.
Can old links be re-posted after a certain period of time passes?
If so, maybe auto-add a prefix, "REPOST: Article Title", for any link that's re-submitted. That way people who've seen it before can ignore clicking on it, while those who haven't seen it will now have the opportunity to read it.
EDIT: BvS already posted a link to a Reddit post with the same idea.
I agree with your points. The only thing that I would ask for is to date new submissions of old posts with a label such as [2004] so that readers can immediately grasp whether it is a new essay or an old one.
Essays, like good literature, become more relevant and certain times. A major event could happen (Groupon turning down Google) and a PG essay could shed some light on the situation, even if it was written years ago.
Likewise, new situations can cast a different light on what was once written. HNers posting relevant and timely links to old essays is a good thing.
I agree that the discussion, especially the questioning and answering (but not so much the posturing) is especially good.
But can we limit it to one resubmit per year? After a couple times in the same year, my patience grows thin. After all, HN has a lot of really good essayists out there, folks who can be just as helpful. As nice as PG is, we don't want to give him too much exposure. After a while anybody can start to sound repetitious, like when they go on and on about something. Sort of like repeating themselves. Over and over again. The same thing.
But... I don't see the comments for those... I like the comments.
I like Paul and all but it's you guys that make this site. It's all the interesting, controversial, some times counter intuitive, illuminating, erudite, and spot on comments that makes this place a near addiction for me.
When those essays are posted I love the interchange that follows.
This is about as likely as it is for people to stop submitting posts telling the entire community what to post, how to vote, how to behave, etc. I'll take the occasional repost over the increase in high-horse posts telling me what I can and can't do (instead of just letting the system determine what makes it to the front page and what doesn't which, in general, has worked just fine).
I love seeing old gems reposted, for revisiting and for a fresh discussion. It's a shame that the latest PG essay submissions are just full of meta rants (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2010854).
If you don't like a submission, flag it. Meta posts are the worst, like this comment unfortunately.
Hacker News has built in re-submission detection. Put in a link that's been posted before and it gets caught.
The headline on this thread is based on a Straw-Man fallacy, and in my opinion has a nasty 'tone' to boot.
How can one assume omnipotence on the part of the submitter? They're somehow supposed to be aware of everything that has been submitted to HN? If the news engine doesn't detect it it's new - if the news engine does detect it, it's caught. So how can someone re-submit and article?
Not sure why OP is getting downvoted like it's Reddit but whatever...
I just wanted to point that this isn't a perfect world where every copy of every article share the (exact) same title which means a lot of times the same article isn't found by that search. Removing the quotes often time don't help either because you're them swamped irrelevant results.
It's pretty close; few people even bother to change the title. If you follow up by searching for anything about the article's content, you can do a pretty good job of determining with 95% certainty whether or not it's a duplicate.
I personally don't think it's too much to expect someone to spend five minutes of time before publishing a post to tens of thousands of people, but I may be in a minority.
Also not quite sure why I've been downvoted - but - as I said above, in my opinion, the whole thread has a nasty tone to it. So I probably shouldn't be shocked. (Was it in retaliation for something? Honestly, I don't get it)
If I were more concerned about Karma than discussion I'd have just kept my head down and STFU (or is that meant to be "TITS or GTFO"?).
The cost of an article submission is LOW, there are thousands of visitors to HN per day who can choose to vote things up or not as appropriate. An volunteer "mechanical turk" separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of finding articles of value for reading on the front page.
Why then should we worry in any way if something gets submitted a second time? Why imply anyone's done anything wrong by participating in the community or attempting to bring something of value to the table?
The "Here's the list, now stop submitting anything on it" sentiment from the headline comes across with a tremendous chip on it's shoulder.
Is really just me that is getting that?
It is my strong opinion that this place (Hacker News) should be a little more humble than that. Oh, and a whole lot nicer.
If you want to ask people not to submit old content, I'd suggest going beyond the list and coming up with a compelling reason why old content being reposted and upvoted and discussed vigorously is detrimental to the HN community as a whole and not simply annoying to a few old hands.
Some of that discussion is a complete retread, of course, but some of it is brand-spanking new and reflects the fact that both the people and the times have changed, so the ideas will also change.