What is the reason for posting this reply? I think I understand the sentiment -- it gets tiring to see something repeatedly. The reason I ask tho is it comes off as a bit dismissive, but I consider re-discussing a post every 1.5 years to not be too terrible, as: a) some people may have missed the first posting b) lots of new people can now get exposure and c) we have all changed a bit in that time and have new perspectives perhaps.
I know that discussion of stuff like this really helps people understand the material better, so I would personally prefer a bit of repeat on the good reads, to keep people up to speed than a keeping repeats to minimum.
I can also see another side -- this is to point people to previous discussions for the reason of them benefitting from what has already been said. I agree with this motive. I just think it would be better if there was a way to present it which has a bit less dismissive of a feel to it.
Anyway, I don't have a great solution in mind, more just exploring the idea. Cheers.
a. Yes, it's tiring to see the same thing repeated. As a hacker, repetition, and hence wasting time, is something I try to avoid.
b. Yes, it's nice to present classic items to the newer members of the community. That's of value
c. Without reference to the previous discussions the same points will be made over and over again. See item (a) above.
d. There is value in the previous discussions. It would be a shame to see it wasted.
In short, I don't have a problem with things being reposted occasionally, but I'd like to leverage the existing backlog of discussions. Regarding sounding dismissive:
e. I don't have time to word-craft things endlessly, and sometimes I don't get the nuances right. It takes me almost no time to create the cross-references - the time is consumed in trying not to offend people. Sometimes there's not enough time for both.
a. Yes, it's tiring to see the same thing repeated. As a hacker, repetition, and hence wasting time, is something I try to avoid.
I concur with this in general, but also suggest that repetition is a cornerstone of learning. Many ideas must be revisited several times before full understanding takes effect. This specific type of repetition is not wasteful repetition. It may not be you job to teach people, but I highly doubt getting in the way of others gaining understanding is your goal either.
e. I don't have time to word-craft things endlessly, and sometimes I don't get the nuances right. It takes me almost no time to create the cross-references - the time is consumed in trying not to offend people. Sometimes there's not enough time for both.
Fair enough. Seeing as how you are very frequently the person who posts the cross references (which btw, I really appreciate) I would like to propose this as a template for future "this is a repeat" posts (I certainly hope other jump in if there is a better way of putting it than my template):
This article is something of a classic here on HN. There have been some good discussions on it previously (see below). The comments in those articles may help provide some perspective for the discussion here.
I don't know... Your statement assumes the entire concept of discourse is to say things in the minimal number of bytes or words or whatever. This may be true in code or maths, where less verbosity makes the point better, but I am somewhat convinced the point of most discourse is to disseminate understanding.
Since it is people who do the understanding, some repetition, while wasting bytes or words[1], certainly helps maximize reader comprehension. Even math and CS journal papers quote things, not just put pointers. That is wasteful repetition don't you think?
I look at it as an optimization problem. There are at least two variables -- number of words and reader comprehension[2]. The goal is information transfer between people. To minimize or maximize any one of those variables may result in non-optimal information transfer. Instead there may need to be some repetition rather than pointers for some things.
[1] There are serious questions at this point whether at the scale of HN discussions there is such a thing as limited resources for data storage, bandwidth, etc (and given the level of intellect here, even reading time is almost trivial for a lot of posts).
[2] There are lots of confounding variables, such as the intelligence and prior knowledge of any given reader, the eloquence of the writer, the complexity of the point being made etc.
> Your statement assumes the entire concept of discourse is to say things in the minimal number of bytes or words or whatever.
No, that's not my assumption at all.
I find it very useful if someone summarizes previous stuff, or reformulates hard-to-understand (e.g. badly worded) previous comments.
However, you should do that consciously. There's no sense in writing a comment that essentially just repeats what others already have written in better words than you'd ever do. Doing that is a waste of time not only for you (the writer) but also for all the readers. And it happens a lot, simply because people are too lazy to skim though the previous discussion.
Some people gain insight and understanding by trying to explain the material to others. Maybe they think they are saying something different and need to have the sameness pointed out. Perhaps they just think reiterating the point will help others understand by seeing it again.
The above may be wastes of your time or energy or limited word count, but they are not wasteful to others (in fact, the opposite is true -- someone may actually be benefitting!). This is my point: what is wasteful to you may be beneficial to others.
You can downvote it, or wait until stories have been around for a bit so others will have sorted for you (and only read the top comments of course).
> Perhaps they just think reiterating the point will help others understand by seeing it again.
This is of course possible, and I don't object that as long as they know they are reiterating. However, this is only possible if people at least skim over previous posts, which is usually not the case, and which is why hints to previous discussions are not only helpful but necessary to avoid wasting time.
> This is my point: what is wasteful to you may be beneficial to others.
Repeating something for didactic reasons is sometimes indeed no waste of time for the writer. However, if the writer then publishes this, despite other people already wrote that stuff up in a much better way, that person wastes the time of the readers by filling up the comments with, let's face it and call it by its name, garbage.
When enough time has passed for an URL to be resubmitted (I think it's a year or two), I think that the previous submission and comments should be resurrected (using a second karma score for ranking), not an entirely fresh story started.
Simple to implement; accumulated wisdom is not lost.
The presentation of previous discussions was as neutral, factual, and to-the-point as I can imagine; I don't see any dismissiveness or sentiment other than what I injected into it from my experience dealing with reposts on forums for a decade or so.
I see the RoG duplicate detection as serving the historian function you touched on admirably, without needing further padding in politeness.
I can only speculate at the intentions of the grandparent poster; but it's not necessarily their intention to indicate that you shouldn't repost things. It's helpful to link to old discussions of the same post so that interested HNers (like myself) can go read the comments. I know I'm often more interested in the comments than the article itself.
I am the original poster and I knew that it was a repeat but, honestly, my intention is to respond to up-votes so as to fine tune my participation in the HN community to maximize your enjoyment of my presence here.
In short; I am attempting to be Constructive[1] and am using up-votes to guide my attempt.
Yes, I agree. And, since I got a couple of questions about how to best find this, in this example google search query: "The Bipolar Lisp Programmer site:news.ycombinator.com" returns the previous discussions right at the top. I know most of you know this already, but there are many new faces here so no harm in posting.
What is the reason for posting this reply? I think I understand the sentiment -- it gets tiring to see something repeatedly. The reason I ask tho is it comes off as a bit dismissive, but I consider re-discussing a post every 1.5 years to not be too terrible, as: a) some people may have missed the first posting b) lots of new people can now get exposure and c) we have all changed a bit in that time and have new perspectives perhaps.
I know that discussion of stuff like this really helps people understand the material better, so I would personally prefer a bit of repeat on the good reads, to keep people up to speed than a keeping repeats to minimum.
I can also see another side -- this is to point people to previous discussions for the reason of them benefitting from what has already been said. I agree with this motive. I just think it would be better if there was a way to present it which has a bit less dismissive of a feel to it.
Anyway, I don't have a great solution in mind, more just exploring the idea. Cheers.