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what is hacker-news-undocumented fr?

minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-26

3,779Audience · generalComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

tl;dr

A community-maintained cheat sheet of hidden Hacker News features, karma unlock thresholds, ranking algorithm rules, and moderation mechanics that are never explained in the official FAQ.

vibe map

mindmap
  root((HN Undocumented))
    Karma Unlocks
      Downvote at 501
      Flag posts at 31
      Site color at 251
    Ranking Rules
      Flame-war detector
      Second-chance pool
      Content penalties
    Hidden Features
      HN Classic style
      Wayback front pages
      BigQuery dataset
    Moderation
      Shadowbanning
      Post downranking

Code map

Detail Auto

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filefunction / class

what do people make with this?

VIBE 1

Learn which karma scores unlock features like downvoting, flagging, and site color customization on Hacker News

VIBE 2

Understand why your Hacker News submission ranked lower or disappeared using the hidden ranking algorithm notes

VIBE 3

Discover rarely-known tools like the second-chance pool, historical front-page browser, and public BigQuery dataset for HN data analysis

VIBE 4

Avoid common posting mistakes by learning which content types are quietly penalized by the ranking system

how it stacks up fr

minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumentedarrowtype/recursiveopenblockchains/awesome-blockchains
Stars3,7793,7793,779
LanguagePythonRuby
Setup difficultyeasyeasyeasy
Complexity1/51/52/5
Audiencegeneraldesignerdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

how do i run it?

Difficulty · easy time til it works · 5min

in plain english

This repository is a community-maintained reference document that fills the gaps in Hacker News's official documentation. Hacker News is a link-sharing and discussion forum run by Y Combinator, the startup accelerator. Its official guidelines and FAQ cover the basics, but many features and site behaviors have never been publicly explained. This list collects those hidden norms in one place. The undocumented features range from voting mechanics to moderation tools. For example, the ability to downvote comments is only unlocked after a user reaches 501 karma points. Flagging submissions is available at 31 karma. Customizing the color of the site's top navigation bar requires 251 karma. There is also a flame-war detector that automatically reduces the visibility of comments in heated threads, a second-chance pool that gives overlooked submissions another shot at the front page, and a shadowbanning system that makes a user's posts invisible to others without notifying that user. The document also covers implicit site behaviors that are not written rules but are enforced in practice. Posts about politics, diversity and inclusion topics, and submissions without URLs are all quietly downranked by the site's ranking algorithm. Tutorials tend to perform worse than other content types. There are also notes on how the site handles paywalled articles and perceived favoritism toward Y Combinator portfolio companies. A bonus section covers public features that are easy to miss. These include an older visual style called Hacker News Classic, a wayback view for browsing historical front pages, a public BigQuery dataset of all submissions and comments, official RSS feeds, and a way to filter the front page to only show posts above a certain score threshold. The repository has no official affiliation with Hacker News or Y Combinator. It is maintained through GitHub issues and pull requests, with contributions from the community when information turns out to be wrong or incomplete.

prompts (copy fr)

prompt 1
Based on the Hacker News undocumented features list, what karma score do I need to unlock downvoting, flagging, and changing the site nav color?
prompt 2
I posted something on Hacker News and it got no traction, based on the hidden ranking rules in the undocumented guide, what might have caused my post to be downranked?
prompt 3
Show me how to query the public Hacker News BigQuery dataset mentioned in the hacker-news-undocumented repo to find the top 50 Ask HN posts from the past year
prompt 4
Write a plain-English summary of how Hacker News shadowbanning works based on the undocumented features doc, and what user behaviors might trigger it

Frequently asked questions

what is hacker-news-undocumented fr?

A community-maintained cheat sheet of hidden Hacker News features, karma unlock thresholds, ranking algorithm rules, and moderation mechanics that are never explained in the official FAQ.

How hard is hacker-news-undocumented to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is hacker-news-undocumented for?

Mainly general.

peek the repo → explain another one

This repo across BitVibe Labs

double-check against the repo, no cap.