How does the HN system work when I submitted the exact same URL https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20317687 five days ago??? We have stickied this on the usbchardware subreddit as well at the time, it's still on the top: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/ We have a nice wiki and if you are still confused about USB C, ask away, we try to help (chances are, I will answer :) ). You will also find a wonderful cornucopia of interesting USB C devices -- not just the usual chargers, power banks and docks but also a toothbrush, a razor, headphones, speakers, video lights, a soldering iron... we like USB C :)
> How does the HN system work when I submitted the exact same URL
This is a frequently asked question. The answer can be found in HN's FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. Reposts are allowed if a story hasn't had significant attention yet, because we there's a lot of randomness in what gets noticed on the /newest page and we want to give good stories multiple rolls of the dice.
Just guessing the person that submitted later has significantly more karma or popularity. It seems to happen quite a bit. There's also time of day to consider, it's possible this made it in when more people are browsing by newest and upvoted pretty early.
The question rather is, why would the system allow the same URL to be submitted twice. In the past when I tried to submit something already in, I was redirected to the existing post and my submissions was converted into an upvote.
A five-day-old HN submission is effectively dead. Would make sense if the behavior you describe only happens to dupe urls within 24hr of each other if the first one hit a certain threshold of traction. Else makes more sense to allow the dupe submission to give it another shot.
