A small number of reposts is ok if an article hasn't had significant attention yet. Otherwise too many good stories languish unnoticed on the /newest page.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

I'd think, personally, a bit less so if he signed up specifically to post that one thing, and contribute absolutely nothing else..

Reposts are allowed on HN if there hasn't been significant discussion on the link. Even more so if there has been week-long gaps between submissions.

On another article, I got an email from the hn mods (maybe bot) to repost as it was interesting but didn't get traction the first time around.

So I dont think its frowned upon.

Now that it's made it to the front page, maybe it won't get posted again...