A Great Deal of Information About Hacker News

11 hours ago

Hacker News is a news aggregator and forum created by Y Combinator, launched in 2007 as 'Startup News' and rebranded to focus on hacker topics.
The site uses custom jargon like upvote, karma, hug of death, and shadowban, with specific voting rules (e.g., downvoting requires 500 karma).
Posts can be link or text (Ask HN, Show HN, Tell HN), have an 80-character title limit, and can be edited within two hours.
Ranking is based on points, time decay, and penalties for text-only posts; the algorithm has evolved to prevent gaming.
Moderators (dang, Scott Bell, Tom Howard) handle shadowbanning, second-chance pool for overlooked posts, and anti-spam measures.
Name colors indicate new users (green), YC alumni (orange), and high-karma users can change the top bar color.
Search has been provided by Octopart, Algolia, and Trieve; the Firebase API launched in 2014 for programmatic access.
Demographics show a US-heavy user base (32-56%), with significant European usage; active user count has been trending upward.
Notable posts include the Dropbox announcement and the 'Putnam' comment; the site also has anti-procrastination features like noprocrast.

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