

Ask HN: How to check if URL is posted to HN (without actually posting it) - jayliew

Is it possible to check if a URL has been posted to HN without actually posting it?
======
jayliew
One way, although inelegant, would be to post a URL and see if I can delete it
right away. If I can, that means it hasn't been posted prior to me posting.
I'll have to detect the "0 minutes ago" and the delete link

If I cannot delete, that means it already exists

------
FrancescoRizzi
slightly off-topic, I guess but... I think that checking if the same 'topic'
(page title, main keywords, etc) has been posted may be more important. After
all, even if nobody posted yet the URL I'm looking at... but if that URL is a
brief blog post linking to another blog that passes through to the actual
story... and if that story has been posted to HN... then I might as well add
the URL I was looking at in a comment. No?

~~~
jayliew
good point, but that's gonna be hard for recurring popular topics. It's gonna
be difficult to tell the difference between "iPhone kills Android" vs "Android
kills iPhone"

------
callmeed
There's a Chrome extension that adds a tab with an URL's HN comments on the
side. It will show up for any URL on HN (I think).

~~~
jayliew
This one? <http://github.com/adamalbrecht/hacker-news-for-chrome>

Just tried it, there doesn't appear to be a way to check if a URL is already
posted or not

