There's always new things to discuss, even if they're the same things. Because the people doing the discussing are new. For example, I've never seen those old discussions and I never in a million years would have searched for and found them.
I've found the key, when you're on a forum and see something discussed more than once, is to change your thinking. Instead of getting annoyed, think great, a new cohort of people will get to talk about this important topic.
This kind of reframing works in many different areas of my life and the older I get, the more I have to apply it to avoid becoming a grumpy old curmudgeon.
(Links to the old discussions are great though, they just don't need to be followed up by complaining every time.)
So much this. Many (most?) oldstyle forums suffered from a pretty strict no-duplicate rule even in “free talk” sections. This led to few oldtime gatekeepers dominating these places, new post anxiety and general stagnation, because new users had no way to learn occasionally or talk about things. When I started to visit HN, it was so relieving to see that well-separated duplicates don’t get moderated away or even discouraged. It simply means that you can eventually learn what you don’t know yet or missed for some reason, can participate/discuss it from a today’s point of view and renew your understanding.
Repetition may be seen as a visitor’s expense, but appreciating it creates a huge net profit over time, cause it helps a community to stay fit and alive.
All the tut-tutting makes searching harder for other users too! You end up with relevant and active looking threads that are actually just regulars dunking on the poster for not searching.
My personal favorite is doing a Google search and landing on an ancient forum where the discussion is some variation of "look at the stickies" or "use the search feature", but the stickies are 404s and the search returns only the aforementioned thread.
I've found the key, when you're on a forum and see something discussed more than once, is to change your thinking. Instead of getting annoyed, think great, a new cohort of people will get to talk about this important topic.
This kind of reframing works in many different areas of my life and the older I get, the more I have to apply it to avoid becoming a grumpy old curmudgeon.
(Links to the old discussions are great though, they just don't need to be followed up by complaining every time.)