I believe this is also one of the forum rules so even if it involves a newbie, I don't think it should be tolerated since every one is supposed to have gone through forum rules before creating threads in the forum.
It is not against the forum rules. If it were, many topics would have been deleted or locked. If you stay in the forum long enough, you will notice the never ending cycle of newbies repeating the same questions about merit and rank. It’s a lazy attitude and is tiring to seebut it is not against the forum rules. The rule you quoted is talking about duplicate posting in multiple boards, that means if I start a topic on Beginners & Help, I cannot post the same topic in Bitcoin Discussion.