What does "[dupe]" mean. When is it a misnomer. Consider some scenarios A. Two or more stories on the same topic on /active simultaneously, i.e., multiple t

What does "[dupe]" mean. When is it a misnomer. Consider some scenarios A. Two or more stories on the same topic on /active simultaneously, i.e., multiple threads of discussion on same topic Recent examples On Aug 30 2026, for example, we had two stories about Iceland both on /active at the same time https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn45vdxyvvlo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn45vdxyvvlo http://www.ft.com/content/53b5abd8-2919-4dc6-8dd6-81fc054e8b6f http://www.ft.com/content/53b5abd8-2919-4dc6-8dd6-81fc054e8b... This happened again the following day on Aug 31 2026 Two stories about the same postmortem on /active at the same time http://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingface http://www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-huggingface http://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-offer-holy-postmortem-of-the-huggingface-hack/ http://thezvi.wordpress.com/2026/08/29/metr-and-redwood-offe... NB. This overlap, or "duplication", may not be reflected in /front?day=YYYY-MM-DD /active and /front are not always exactly the same; normally they are very close B. Word-for-word identical content (re)published different submitted story URLs The submissions may or may not have any replies, i.e., "discussion" Recent example, blog post 1787908199 | The Server Called Paranoia: Defend Autistici/Inventati | https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10083/2 https://cavallette.noblogs.org/2026/08/10083/2 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49476197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49476197 1787956263 | The Server Called Paranoia: Defend Autistici/Inventati Before Sept25 Sabot Media | https://www.wewillfreeus.org/the-server-called-paranoia-defend-autistici-inventati-before-september-25/ https://www.wewillfreeus.org/the-server-called-paranoia-defe... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49485035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49485035 1788041055 | The Server Called Paranoia: Defend Autistici/Inventati | http://micahflee.com/the-server-called-paranoia-defend-autistici-inventati/ http://micahflee.com/the-server-called-paranoia-defend-autis... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49493725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49493725 With news (cf. blog posts), for copyright reasons, it's unlikely to see the exact same content, word-for-word, published at different URLs operated by different news organizations Most, almost all, URLs pointing to news submitted to HN have 0-1 replies, no "discussion"; it's exceedingly rare for these submissions to comprise the exact same content, word-for-word The "[dupe]" label in a comment in these threads cannot apply to discussion, it must apply to something else, e.g., the content or the URL C. Finally there are exact duplicate URLs that point to exact duplicate content Parent is not the only commenter to see that "[dupe]" is being used by some commenters in a deceptive way; how often is it applied in the common sense way Let's look at the application of the "[dupe]" label to identical URLs in Aug 2026 for example In Aug 2026, the "[dupe]" label was applied to 187 submissions ("stories") In Aug 2026, the total number of exact duplicate story URLs submitted was 2975 In Aug 2026, the total number of stories submitted was 41830