It's not a big issue. HN users tend to upvote preferred sources, post cross-links, or discussions center around specifics in each article.
But it's also not optimal. Multiple articles on the same subject could benefit from a single discussion on the subject matter they have in common. Or compare article A versus article B's coverage. Also I suspect most HN users don't like laying out some argument & post, only to discover 10m later that same topic was argued to death in a related story. Or upvote a less-preferred source while a more-preferred source already saw lots of comments & upvotes.
It could (for example) be implemented by adding a poll to let HN users vote on what to use as primary link. Or just list the various links. Users can add candidates, select/upvote which they prefer, most popular one gets hugged, additional articles serve as extras. Hey this sounds a lot like a mini-election!
Edit: in effect, it would be a kind of grouping of articles under 1 heading.
Your thoughts & suggestions please?
If you see one, send an email to hn@ycombinator.com so dang/tomhow can take a look. They usually reply a few hour later or sooner.
Remember to include the links to both threads in HN to save them the problem of searching them that sometimes is not obvious.
I don’t see it as an issue at all.
Which is to say how you are inclined to categorize something is not how everyone else categorizes it when they look at it.
it's also not optimal
The current system is simpler and simplicity is a kind of optimization.