We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46867700 and marked it off topic.

LOL! I also found that our dear friend ChrisArchitect, sees them (maybe s/he uses a tool), and I just refer to them to see duplicates I might have missed/submitted. I see no harm, and it is a thankless job. We also know that sometimes duplicates are the only way to resurface interesting and curious articles.

In this case it's not a direct duplicate of the link, but another post on the same topic. I find there is value in reading through the previous discussion that I may not have otherwise seen.

I've seen this account dupe-post twice on a story that was flagged, then later vouched.

Which is a telling bug for a bot to have.

It’s a common HN practice. I’ve done it once or twice. Mods will do it often, especially with highly active topics. I imagine it started as a method to avoid duplicate posting thereby consolidating conversation and, also, so that karma attribution goes to whoever the original poster was.

I imagine automation would be difficult because the same topics come from different sources and occasionally there is additional/novel information in similarly titled postings.

HN does dedupe on a timer. If it has been a little while reposts are allowed to get a chance of reaching new eyeballs.

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