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ASK DN: How do we prevent re-posts and posts with old content?

over 7 years ago from , UX Designer

I love how DN has grown so fast and that there's tons of great links being published each day. That being said I see a trend where a lot of posts have either been featured on DN before or the content of the post is old news. (Jenius font and Hook was posted atleast twice)

It's not really a big problem yet as you can just ignore those posts, but if it keeps happening more and more often it will inevitably make DN an unpleasant experience.

How can we solve this before it becomes an issue?

10 comments

  • Jenni LederJenni Leder, over 7 years ago

    It would be great if the field that you put the link in (while publishing) could check and see if it's been posted before.

    8 points
    • Hampus OlssonHampus Olsson, over 7 years ago

      +1

      0 points
    • Jason WilliamsJason Williams, over 7 years ago

      m'agree. Reddit does this well enough.

      1 point
    • Matt KumpMatt Kump, over 7 years ago

      Definitely. Some kind of innocent-enough "hey, we think this has been posted before (link)" which brings you to the page so you can upvote it and read contents.

      They should still be able to post it, but as most people don't "mean" to repost (on this site), giving them that heads up would be valuable.

      1 point
      • Cat NooneCat Noone, over 7 years ago

        I actually have done this before, not realizing the link had been posted already and Designer News told me that it was posted a few weeks prior.

        However, it did not offer to bring me to the post and that would be an awesome feature.

        0 points
    • Missy TitusMissy Titus, over 7 years ago

      It does do this. Some people choose to ignore it, if they think it's important enough.

      0 points
    • Cat NooneCat Noone, over 7 years ago

      I actually have done this before, not realizing the link had been posted already and Designer News told me that it was posted a few weeks prior.

      0 points
  • Missy TitusMissy Titus, over 7 years ago

    I think this is a problem that only affects "power users". As you mentioned, the site will grow (hopefully!) and new users wont have seen old content. Does that mean it's not relevant to them? I, personally, don't think so. This is the same as Reddit and any other social sharing site. If something is so ubiquitous that everyone will have already seen it, then less people will post it, or if it is posted, it will leave the front page quickly. But if it's old but still valuable, I don't think it's problematic to have it hit the front page, and stay for awhile. It's new to someone. The point is to provide value, and if you're doing that, then it's fine. If you have personally already seen a link, ignore it. Or better yet, start a discussion around it.

    1 point
  • Lucas CobbLucas Cobb, over 7 years ago

    What about when we have multiples of the same content on the homepage with only 20 links showing. If there are only say 8 legitimate links and the rest are reposts? That could become a problem for new and old users a like. No one wants to see duplicate posts on the homepage.

    0 points
  • Dennis KramerDennis Kramer, over 7 years ago

    If I'm not mistaken, I believe they already do this. If you input a URL that's already been posted, you get a notification of the fact when you click "post". It might not link you to where it's already been posted, but it gives you the option of whether or not you'd still like to post anyway.

    Go ahead, give it a shot. Try to post a link to hessian.tv or something.

    0 points