I think I see the misunderstanding here! By repetition I didn't mean "anything that has ever appeared before". I meant "the frontpage being too similar to other recent frontpages". We could call the former absolute repetition and the latter relative repetition.
For community happiness, what matters is avoiding relative repetition. Absolute repetition isn't a problem because, once enough time has gone by, everything old becomes new again. It's like the second-hand clothing store in my home town that used to be called "New to You". (Actually it was called "New 2 You", but I'm pot-committed to the wrong spelling: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....)
In this sense, historical material usually counts as non-repetitive because it doesn't appear much and when it does, the topic is usuually unlike anything else. It is, in fact, some of our most uncorrelated material, so we encourage it.
For example, today we have lunar dust, Trojan coins, and a lost folk singer. A few days ago we had APL source code, medieval pronouns, and lord knows what else.
In the case of classics—perennial submissions that most HN readers either know or would probably enjoy—we explicitly allow them to be reposted after a year or so, and often list the previous discussions because many readers enjoy scrolling back through those too. Here's a current example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47811186.
For community happiness, what matters is avoiding relative repetition. Absolute repetition isn't a problem because, once enough time has gone by, everything old becomes new again. It's like the second-hand clothing store in my home town that used to be called "New to You". (Actually it was called "New 2 You", but I'm pot-committed to the wrong spelling: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....)
In this sense, historical material usually counts as non-repetitive because it doesn't appear much and when it does, the topic is usuually unlike anything else. It is, in fact, some of our most uncorrelated material, so we encourage it.
For example, today we have lunar dust, Trojan coins, and a lost folk singer. A few days ago we had APL source code, medieval pronouns, and lord knows what else.
In the case of classics—perennial submissions that most HN readers either know or would probably enjoy—we explicitly allow them to be reposted after a year or so, and often list the previous discussions because many readers enjoy scrolling back through those too. Here's a current example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47811186.