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Ask HN: What's up with the "unknown or expired link"?

1 points by da_n ↗ HN
I'm quite new to HN, so excuse me if this has already been answered. I Google'd but the first result is another Ask HN from several years ago. Why does the pagination use random generated url's such as:

x?fnid=sk3BuAfqt1

It is very frustrating. If I follow a linked story, read it and open a few tabs from the article, by the time I get back to HN the pagination link is often dead. I have to start over again to get back to my place in the news feed. Is this by design?

2 comments

[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 15.9 ms ] thread
steventruong
It's been a topic for years on and off.

See: https://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news+Unknown+or+expir...

and

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2992474

I didn't bother reading. You can extract the answer from there or maybe PG will answer here.

da_n
Thanks. I looked at the HN page you linked, but it doesn't seem to have any 'official' clarification about it. I already tried doing Google searches but nothing that comes up really explains why this pagination design has been chosen or why it hasn't been fixed (if it is not by design).

Edit: I'll admit I haven't read everything in Google.