When I log out, and clear my browser's cache, both of those nodes are shown

There are two nodes, as you can see from the differing node_id.

Is this normal behavior, or a bug?

Are you saying you didn't post a copy in Meditations 4 hours after posting to the Perl News section? That would be a bug.

The later copy is already considered for deletion. It will occur when when the node gets 5 reap votes and has a negative reputation (assuming noone votes something other than "Reap"). It's currently one vote shy of deletion.

Update: I thought the older one was in Perl News, but it isn't anymore. Maybe it got moved to Meditations

In case there are more reports of dupes:

The logging from the creation/editing of 802413 & 802414 might give a hint as well. I was a bit surprised to see my just created reply twice, one with a slightly more recent update than the other. Do NOT reap, as I could use it to split my reply acc. to topic. Still, a bit strange.

@clp: thanx for the article pointer.

I only posted the 'Mentoring' node in one place and at one time: Meditations.

I never posted anything in Perl News. Based on the time stamp of the second node, I was not at the computer at the time the duplicate node appeared (and the console was secure, but it was logged in to my perlmonks account at the time).

I never saw this node in Perl News, but never looked there. I checked the Newest Nodes list several times while researching the situation, and it always showed both nodes in the Meditations section.

The duplicate node that I saw was in Meditations, not in Perl News. I just checked the old browser page to confirm this.

When I checked on a second machine when I originally found & reported this problem (without logging in to perlmonks), it showed both nodes in the Meditations section. I did not look at the Perl News section.

Looks like the duplicate node has been removed, thanks.

Your first node was moved to Perl News (because it is mostly a link to an external article, which has become close to the primary purpose of that section). Several hours later, when the second node appeared, somebody considered the first one as a duplicate of the second and somebody else considered the second as a duplicate of the first (one of whom probably should read up on how to use consideration). After you started this PMD thread (and very roughly around the time the duplicate got reaped) the first node got moved back to Meditations (it may have also been moved back and forth more times, but not that I noticed).

As for how the second node appeared hours later: The most likely way for that to happen is a browser reload (which probably wouldn't have produced a duplicate if the original node hadn't been moved). Note that browser reloads can happen rather surprisingly just because you used the "back" button (and either at some point told your browser to stop bothering you when it is about to rePOST in order to get back to a page that expired from its cache or you just dismissed the warning dialogue). Note that I have yet to use a browser that consistently avoids perversely declaring pages as "expired" so that they must be reloaded despite there being no reasonable justification for such a conclusion (even after investigating the twisted, conflicting cache control headers that are part of HTTP).

And, yes, it is pretty stupid of a web site to not detect and prevent such duplicates.

- tye        

IIRC, when someone commented about it in the CB, asking if it should be moved to perl news, the node I was looking at was in Perl News (or something similar to that - old memory, ya know ;-). The responses to ikegami's question above would be very interesting, especially if clp did not post a second copy of the post.

--MidLifeXis