Sometimes articles just don't get traction and then they're invited to resubmit (by dang, the moderator). Since the submitter submitted it twice, that was probably what happened here.
As to why it's "more popular", I guess you mean is getting more upvotes, that's part of the trick with submissions. Post it on a slow Friday work day before a holiday and you'll get more clicks than some other days or times.
It was entered into the second chance pool[1]. Interim posts were probably not as popular because I accidentally broke my site's CSS briefly that wasn't obvious in the preview deployments, but was present on the actual site. I only noticed about an hour ago
It should be a brighter orange closer to what you see on HN's top bar. I've been waffling on the magenta. It works "fine" in low usage. This is the first post where I used it a great deal. I'm gonna be spending some time working with the colors over the weekend, as you're the 5th person to say something to me about it.
It could be worse, however. My last design would flashbang you, even if you used darkreader
As to why it's "more popular", I guess you mean is getting more upvotes, that's part of the trick with submissions. Post it on a slow Friday work day before a holiday and you'll get more clicks than some other days or times.