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https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

Some of the hidden norms about Hacker News not otherwise covered in the Guidelines and the FAQ.
https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented
Last synced: 27 days ago
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Some of the hidden norms about Hacker News not otherwise covered in the Guidelines and the FAQ.
Host: GitHub
URL: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented
Owner: minimaxir
License: mit
Created: 2018-02-22T14:59:25.000Z (over 6 years ago)
Default Branch: master
Last Pushed: 2024-05-23T13:47:01.000Z (6 months ago)
Last Synced: 2024-10-01T21:02:47.934Z (about 1 month ago)
Homepage:
Size: 310 KB
Stars: 3,622
Watchers: 57
Forks: 108
Open Issues: 30
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
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README

        # A List of Hacker News's Undocumented Features and Behaviors

[Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com), a simple link aggregator owned and operated by Silicon Valley startup incubator [Y Combinator](http://www.ycombinator.com), has had many [positive effects](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16409768) on SV startups and engineers as a whole. On Hacker News, users receive Karma whenever another user upvotes a submission or comment they made, which incentivizes positive contributions to the community.

However, in maintaining its simplicity, many new features and behaviors added over the years on Hacker News are not fully documented other than the [occasional](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073675) comments from staff. This list details some of the hidden norms about Hacker News not otherwise covered in the [Guidelines](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and the [FAQ](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), along with a few bonus features outside of typical HN usage. If there is anything missing/incorrect from this list, feel free to file a GitHub issue/PR.

_This list has no affiliation with Hacker News, Y Combinator, or any YC-backed company._

**Table of Contents**

- [A List of Hacker News's Undocumented Features and Behaviors](#a-list-of-hacker-newss-undocumented-features-and-behaviors)

  - [Undocumented Features](#undocumented-features)

    - [Moderators](#moderators)

    - [Downvoting Comments](#downvoting-comments)

    - [Flagging/Vouching](#flaggingvouching)

    - [Top Bar Color](#top-bar-color)

    - [Merry Christmas!](#merry-christmas)

    - [Anti-Voting Manipulation](#anti-voting-manipulation)

    - [Flame-War Detector](#flame-war-detector)

    - [Second-Chance Pool](#second-chance-pool)

    - [Edit/Delete Time Limits](#editdelete-time-limits)

    - [Unvote Time Limits](#unvote-time-limits)

    - [Comment Collapsing](#comment-collapsing)

    - [Shadowbanning](#shadowbanning)

    - [Hidden Reply Links](#hidden-reply-links)

    - [Green Usernames](#green-usernames)

    - [Thin Black Bar](#thin-black-bar)

  - [Behaviors](#behaviors)

    - [Implicit Downranking of Politics](#implicit-downranking-of-politics)

    - [Implicit Downranking of Topics Around Diversity and Inclusion](#implicit-downranking-of-topics-around-diversity-and-inclusion)

- [Implicit Downranking of Posts Without URLs](#implicit-downranking-of-posts-without-urls)

  - [Paywalls](#paywalls)

  - [Perceived Favoritism Toward YC Companies](#perceived-favoritism-toward-yc-companies)

  - [Downranking of Tutorials](#downranking-of-tutorials)

  - [Bonus Features](#bonus-features)

    - [Hacker News Classic](#hacker-news-classic)

    - [Hacker News Wayback](#hacker-news-wayback)

    - [Hacker News on BigQuery](#hacker-news-on-bigquery)

    - [Hacker News Lists](#hacker-news-lists)

    - [Public URLS with user-generated content](#public-urls-with-user-generated-content)

    - [Official RSS feeds](#official-rss-feeds)

    - [Hacker News Search](#hacker-news-search)

    - [Filter Out Posts Below X Points](#filter-out-posts-below-x-points)

  - [To-Do](#to-do)

  - [Maintainer](#maintainer)

## Undocumented Features

### Moderators

Hacker News currently has one full time moderator: Dan Gackle ([dang](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dang)), and formerly Scott Bell ([sctb](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sctb)). Their [comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang) [replies](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=sctb) provide a pseudo-log of Hacker News moderation.

Dan is very responsive when contacted at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), and is the best option for resolving any issues on Hacker News.

### Downvoting Comments

All comments start with a score of 1 point (but in order to prevent bandwagoning, the comment score is not visible to users other than the author). After users reach **501 Karma**, they gain the ability to downvote another comment. Downvoted comments (i.e. with a score < 1) reduce their placement on the comment thread and will appear desaturated to other users deemphasize them. There is no upper limit on the score of a comment, but the minimum score is -4 points. Additional downvotes after that still subtract points from the user's Karma, but the comment won't go below -4. You cannot downvote comments which are direct replies to your own comment, and you cannot downvote **24 hours** after the original comment was made.

![](/images/hn_downvotes.png)

Complaining about being downvoted is discouraged and usually results in even more downvotes.

If the comment desaturation makes Hacker News difficult to read, you can click on the comment's timestamp to go to its page where the comment will no longer be faded, or you can install the CSS extension [discussed here](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16426569).

### Flagging/Vouching

If a user has **31 Karma**, they can flag submissions. Although submissions cannot be downvoted, flags act as a "super" downvote and enough flags will strongly reduce the rank of the submission, or kill it entirely (flagging is supposed to be used for submissions which break the site guidelines, but that isn't always the case in practice). A submission that's flagged to death will have a `[flagged]` tag. Comments behave similarly.

A `[dead]` submission (that does not also show `[flagged]`) is killed by a moderator or by the software. They will only be shown to users who have `showdead` enabled in their profile. A submission can simultaneously be `[flagged]` and `[dead]`.

If a user has **31 Karma**, they can also [vouch](https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements/) for a `[dead]` submission/comment. A vouched submission/comment has its rank restored (and potentially improved as the vouch can counteract the effects of flags).

### Top Bar Color

If a user has **251 Karma**, they can set the color of the top bar in their profile settings. The default is #ff6600. The Y Combinator logo will change its color to match the top bar.

Here's the [list](https://news.ycombinator.com/topcolors) of colors from users who have recently posted.

### Merry Christmas!

During Christmas (December 25th) UTC, the Hacker News front page will have a Christmas theme, with a dark red top bar, and alternating red and green submission ranking numbers.

### Anti-Voting Manipulation

The FAQ states "users should vote for a story because they personally find it intellectually interesting, not because someone has content to promote." Indeed, Hacker News [utilizes](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7972941) a voting ring detector which will prevent caught submissions from hitting the front page. Due to sites like [Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com) normalizing the asking for upvotes or other engagement via social media, the implicit asking of upvotes is also done for Hacker News, usually due to [ignorance](https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/958397508996055040) of the Hacker News rule against it. There are very few good reasons to draw attention to a Hacker News submission immediately after it has been submitted.

One popular "trick" for obfuscating voting manipulation on Hacker News is to link to the Hacker News's `/newest` page of new submissions (instead of a direct link which would otherwise make voting manipulation obvious), and asking friends to upvote the submission from that page. This trick doesn't actually work.

### Flame-War Detector

The FAQ notes that submission rank is impacted by "[software which downweights overheated discussions](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089)." A good rule of thumb for this effect is when the number of comments on a submission exceeds its score. Moderators can overrule the downranking for appropriate, not-actually-a-flame-war discussions.

### Second-Chance Pool

Moderators will sometimes [rescue a post](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380) which didn't receive a lot of upvotes and reset the submission time on the post. (This is also one of the reasons why the FAQ discourages deleting submissions).

Relatedly, moderators can also [invite users](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10308900) via email to resubmit a post which didn't get much traction.

Posts benefiting from this program are visible at https://news.ycombinator.com/pool .

### Edit/Delete Time Limits

After a post or comment is made, it can be edited by the author **within 2 hours**. A post/comment can be deleted by the author within those two hours, **but only if it has no replies**, in order to prevent discussion from being lost. In that case, the post/comment **cannot be deleted** (This can result in a fake `[deleted]` edit if a person wants to remove their comment in the limit but can't). Users can [upvote posts from any time](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28817791) as a "bookmarking" feature.

Moderators can change the title of a submission at any time.

If you need something deleted but you can't, you'll have to message [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

### Unvote Time Limits

After a user votes on a post or comment, it can be unvoted [**within 1 hour**](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12073806). After that time, the vote becomes permanent.

### Comment Collapsing

Comments can be collapsed by clicking the `[+]` icon to improve readability.`[flagged]` comments are sometimes collapsed by default, and moderators can set a comment to automatically be collapsed if necessary (e.g. meta-discussion).

When a comment thread is collapsed, the `[x more]` number on the right indicates the total number of hidden children comments.

### Shadowbanning

Both users and domains can be shadowbanned, where all posts/comments by that user / submissions to that domain will be instantly `[dead]` and cannot receive votes/comments (but can still be vouched). For accounts with a substantial history on Hacker News, moderators [will give warnings](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16441707) before a ban.

A good way to tell if a user/domain is banned is to either have another user with `showdead` enabled check for a series of `[dead]` content from that source, or view those submissions in Private Browsing/Incognito mode to see if they appear.

![](/images/shadowban.png)

Users/domains are usually shadowbanned for breaking HN rules/spam. If you feel you are unfairly shadowbanned, contact [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

### Hidden Reply Links

If the comment depth is 3 or more, reply links are withheld until the comments age a while. The amount of aging is a function of the depth. You can get around it by clicking on the comment's timestamp to go to its own page.

### Green Usernames

Accounts which are less than **2 weeks** old at time of submitting/commenting will appear with a green username.

### Thin Black Bar

Occasionally, there will be a thin black bar at the top of the top bar, in memoriam of a significant figure in the tech/science community dying. A Hacker News submission about the death will usually be on the front page at that time.

## Behaviors

### Implicit Downranking of Politics

The Guidelines state that _most_ political discussion is _probably_ off-topic. However, the line between technology and politics is blurred, especially as of recently. Most tech related submissions with a hint of political partisanship will quickly be flagged to death by users (or die a slow death due to the inevitable flame war).

dang has commented about this issue [many times over the years](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=political%20overlap%20by:dang).

### Implicit Downranking of Topics Around Diversity and Inclusion

Likewise, topics around diversity and inclusion in tech have gained lots of visibility over the past few years. However, despite these discussions not being off-topic, they tend to be flagged to death by users regardless. Unfortunately. (Moderators occasionally unkill such threads if they see it in time, although it rarely sticks).

# Implicit Downranking of Posts Without URLs

[Posts without URLs get penalized](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21874086). If you post with a link and then add the text as a first comment you have more visibility.

### Paywalls

Many news websites have started implementing a paywall for their content, which has caused conflict with Hacker News's "original source" rule.

As a result, submissions which link to paywalled sites tend to get many comments complaining about paywalls, [which are off-topic](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989).

### Perceived Favoritism Toward YC Companies

YC Companies get two notable benefits on Hacker News; they can post jobs ads to the front page (which start off at Rank #6, cannot be voted/commented on, and have a fixed decay rate), and the ability to do a [Launch HN](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Launch%20HN&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story) when their startup launches out of a YC batch.

Currently, there is no evidence that non-job submissions about a YC startup receive preferential treatment on the front page, or kill submissions critical of a YC startup. In fact, the moderators have stated that they explicitly [avoid killing controversial YC posts](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8258752) when possible.

Additionally, founders of YC companies see each other's usernames [show up in orange,](https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/18/the-evolution-of-hacker-news/) which — although not an explicit benefit — does allow fellow YC founders to immediately identify one another in discussions.

### Downranking of Tutorials

HN submissions which are tutorials are [downranked by moderators](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16485753), as they gratify intellectual curiosity less.

## Bonus Features

### Hacker News Classic

Hacker News allows people to use the [old front page ranking algorithm](https://news.ycombinator.com/classic), which only [counts votes](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16442776) from early users. Early users are defined as being created before [Feb 13, 2008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24401292).

### Hacker News Wayback

Hacker News allows users to see what the front page looks like [at any point in time](https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2012-03-24), representing a weighted view of the submissions from that 24 hour period. You can also do a wayback view for any user at their registration date by clicking their registration date in their profile.

### Hacker News on BigQuery

If you want to gather large amount of Hacker News data for data analysis/machine learning, you should use the [Hacker News dataset on BigQuery](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/hacker-news), which has submission and comment data [up to November 2022](https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/issues/66) and is much more pragmatic to use than manually scraping data from the Hacker News API.

### Hacker News Lists

Hacker News maintains a [list of useful links](https://news.ycombinator.com/lists) that allow for primitive filtering by certain types of content. These currently include:

- [/leaders](https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders) — View a list of users with the most karma

- [/front](https://news.ycombinator.com/front) — Filter front page submissions for a given day (e.g. 2016-06-20), ordered by time spent there

- [/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best) — View the highest-voted recent links

- [/active](https://news.ycombinator.com/active) — View the links with the most active current discussions

- [/bestcomments](https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments) — List the highest-voted recent comments

- [/highlights](https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights) — List curated high-quality comments

- [/noobstories](https://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories) — Show submissions from new accounts

- [/noobcomments](https://news.ycombinator.com/noobcomments) — List comments from new accounts

- [/pool](https://news.ycombinator.com/pool) — Links selected for a [second chance](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308) at the front page

- [/shownew](https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew) — View new Show HN links

- [/invited](https://news.ycombinator.com/invited) — List of stories deemed interesting whose author was invited to repost in order to give them a second chance because they didn't catch interest at the first submit. More information here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508960

- [/shownew](https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew) — View new [Show HN](https://news.ycombinator.com/show) links

- [/asknew](https://news.ycombinator.com/asknew) — Latest [Ask HN](https://news.ycombinator.com/ask) (text) posts

- [/whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring) – Monthly "Who Is Hiring" threads

- [/launches](https://news.ycombinator.com/launches) — Launches of YC startups

### Public URLS with user-generated content

- https://news.ycombinator.com/active

- https://news.ycombinator.com/ask

- https://news.ycombinator.com/asknew

- https://news.ycombinator.com/best

- https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments

- https://news.ycombinator.com/classic

- https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=[name]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=[name]&comment=t

- https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=[day]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=[domain]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=[id]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders

- https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments

- https://news.ycombinator.com/newest

- https://news.ycombinator.com/noobcomments

- https://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories

- https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=[score]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/show

- https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew

- https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=[name]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring

- https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=[name]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/topcolors

- https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=[name]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/vouched?id=[name]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/flagged?id=[name]

- https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights

- https://news.ycombinator.com/pool

- https://news.ycombinator.com/invited

### Official RSS feeds

- https://news.ycombinator.com/rss maps the frontpage.

- https://news.ycombinator.com/showrss maps the Show HN page.

### Hacker News Search

[HN Search](https://hn.algolia.com/) provides real-time full-text search for Hacker News. The web app is [open source](https://github.com/algolia/hn-search) and powered by Algolia Search.

### Filter Out Posts Below X Points

Want to catch-up on the best submissions over the last few days? Filter out all posts below a certain threshold with the `over?points=100` URL parameter. Examples:

- [over 100 points](https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=100)

- [over 200 points](https://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=200)

## To-Do

- Add more images/citations

## Maintainer

Max Woolf ([@minimaxir](http://minimaxir.com), [minimaxir](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=minimaxir) on Hacker News since 2012)

_Max has no affiliation with Hacker News, Y Combinator, or any YC-backed company._