Tell HN: After six days of DupDetector, time to take stock.

I've been running DupDetector for just under a week now. The results have been interesting. Many, many duplicates have been found, and many, many more items have been cross-referenced. So often the same story is reported again and again from different sources, and while this isn't a bad thing in itself, my personal belief is that the resulting divided discussions is a waste of time and effort. And wasted time is something I hate.

I come to HN for high-quality links, and even more high-quality discussion, and anything that dilutes that discussion is, to me, a bad thing.

I originally intended to run the DupDetector for a week, but after 5 1/2 days there's enough information to tell me what I want. The thing that has caught me by surprise is the way it has had such widely differeing reactions. Some people have accused me of "a novelty account", something I'd never heard of, but which appears to be associated with Reddit. I thought of it more as a robot assistant.

In particular, I thought more people would be interested in the technology and the hacking. More than anything it's the lack of a response on that level that's made me pause.

And the final factor is today, when DupDetector's karma has fallen from 27 to 12. I don't care about the karma, but it's an indication of people's feeling about the exercise.

I'll run it for just a few hours longer as I tidy things up, but basically I'm stopping, explaining, and I'll see what the response is. I thought it would be, and it would be thought to be, cool, interesting and useful.

Maybe I've misjudged my audience. I am reviewing the situation.