# minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

Some of the hidden norms about Hacker News not otherwise covered in the Guidelines and the FAQ.

Repository: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/hacker-news-undocumented
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2025-01-18T21:42:23+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 33/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 2, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3114, "days_push": 592, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3786, forks 117 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:18.623890+00:00)

## What it is
A community-maintained reference document listing undocumented features, behaviors, and hidden norms of the Hacker News website. It is a Markdown documentation resource, not software.

## Use cases
- understand how hacker news ranking works
- learn why my hacker news post was downranked
- how does hacker news flagging and vouching work
- what is hacker news shadowbanning
- tips for posting on hacker news without getting penalized
- hacker news moderation norms explained

## When to choose
- you want to understand HN's hidden moderation and ranking behaviors
- you are a new HN user trying to avoid common posting mistakes
- you need a curated reference of HN quirks and bonus features

## When to avoid
- you need official documentation from Hacker News or Y Combinator
- you need software or an API to interact with HN
- you need a tool rather than a written guide

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: active
- function: documentation
- domain: documentation, social-media, tutorials
- platform: -
- tags: hacker-news, community-guide, reference, awesome-lists, web-server

## Member repositories
- minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented (main) score 33

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:18.623890+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:27:40.487783+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:18.623890+00:00, sha cad3294527de)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.