Ask HN: Is HN's duplicate url detection broken?

4 points by khaledh 23 days ago | 1 comment

I noticed that recently some stories are submitted more than once, and the duplicates make it to the front pages. I thought HN detects this and redirects similar submissions to the first one.

Examples:

Show HN: Whetuu – a zero-config cross-shell prompt written in Zig (https://github.com/yamafaktory/whetuu)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48991361

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48981557

Stop pretending billionaires built the future (https://www.elysian.press/p/billionaires-didnt-create-innovation)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49017118

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49023161

What's Under Your Feet in New York City? (https://practical.engineering/blog/2026/7/21/whats-under-your-feet-in-new-york-city)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48994864

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49006049

ChrisArchitect 23 days ago |

Dupes are more about being duplicate discussions. It's okay to submit a url again - after a bit of time - if it didn't get a lot of traction/discussion. So if an initial submission gets overlooked, after a number of hours someone submitting it again is ok. (sometimes neither will go anywhere) Stuff moves fast around here tho. It's more about keeping the posts fresh and not repeating our discussions over and over.