Personally, I don’t bother searching because I only consume the headlines, on other news sites too, come to think of it. There’s lots of interesting things people post but frankly I’d rather pay for a good book on any subject.
hides from the dreaded downvoters
I used to spend more time browsing when reading an actual newspaper or magazine. The discourse on opinion pieces and such is more thought out too—many people, myself included, post too quickly before thinking because we’re always on the go.
Something about the online experience consuming news is less satisfying. Perhaps a hacker out there can set up a print version of HN archives, and print it on a Gutenberg Press. :)
> perhaps ONE of those articles
It is the same article each time, though the comments coming off the different postings of it might have unique nuggets of useful information to dig for.
> Thank you for providing links to the others though! I’m sure it will be helpful for someone.
It isn't as prominent as on other sites, so it isn't difficult to miss sat right at the bottom of the main page, but HN does have a working search function. I find searching for older posts this way can be quite useful for the above reason, when something comes up that has existed for a few years.