Quick answer: Repeated reports of one bug almost always mean the player feels unheard. Give them a single status they can watch, tell them plainly where the fix stands, and the repeats stop. The behavior is a symptom of silence, not malice.
It is tempting to see the player who files the same bug for the fifth time as a nuisance. But put yourself in their position: they reported a real problem, heard nothing, and reasonably concluded the first four reports were lost. Re-reporting is what a reasonable person does when they get no acknowledgement. The fix is almost never to tell them to stop, it is to give them the acknowledgement they have been missing.
Understand What the Repeats Mean
Repeated reports are a feedback loop with no return signal. The player sends, hears nothing, assumes failure, and sends again. Each repeat is evidence that your acknowledgement step is broken, not that the player is unreasonable. Once they get a credible "we have this, here is the status," the loop closes on its own.
There is also useful information in the persistence: this bug matters enough to this player to report repeatedly. That is a signal about severity worth noting, not dismissing.
Give Them One Status to Watch
The decisive move is to point the player at a single, persistent status they can check anytime. "Here is the link to track this exact issue, you will see it update when the fix ships." Now they have a return signal that does not depend on you replying, and the motivation to re-report evaporates.
Bugnet gives each report a tracking page tied to its issue, so a repeat-reporter can watch the real status instead of refiling. Merging their duplicate reports into the one issue also keeps your tracker clean while preserving every one of their submissions as occurrences.
Respond With Patience, Not Friction
Even if it is the fifth report, respond as if it were the first time they felt heard, because for them, it is. "Sorry you have not heard back, this is logged and being worked on, here is where to follow it" resolves the situation. A curt "please stop reporting this, we know" confirms their worst fear, that you find them annoying, and often escalates into a public complaint.
If a single player floods you with genuine spam after being acknowledged and given a tracking link, that is a different, rare problem and can be handled with a polite boundary. But that is the exception; the overwhelming majority of repeat reporters just want to know they were heard.
A player reporting the same bug five times is asking one question: did you hear me?