Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderInteresting! Be sure to follow the link to the second post about what happened to the 2nd, 3rd, 22nd, and 23rd. It's simpler but still worth the read: https://drhagen.com/blog/the-missing-23rd-of-the-month/
This was a really fun read. The explanation for the 1860s error rate peak blew my mind. I wonder how many other characters could generate similar errors and how long it will take for us to notice the patterns.
Very interesting. I'm curious if some of the particular cases of this are an accidental "ReCAPTCHA effect" as those get filled out with no surrounding context plus whatever context the user brings to it (programmers/mathematician-trained brains mentally prioritizing pattern matching nth over 11th). Certainly anecdotally I feel I've made the lith and nth 'mistakes' in ReCAPTCHA attempts.
So many submissions, so little discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10817549 Please use Algolia before you submit anything to HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=the%20missing%2011th&sort=byDa...
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 436
- Total comments
- 61
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-12-29 | The Missing 11th of the Month | bjterry | 12 | 0 |
| 2015-12-30 | The Missing 11th Month | dpeck | 2 | 0 |
| 2015-12-30 | The Missing 11th of the Month | jsvine | 12 | 1 |
| 2015-12-31 | The Missing 11th of the Month | 88e282102ae2e5b | 2 | 0 |
| 2015-12-31 | The Missing 11th of the Month | Amorymeltzer | 6 | 1 |
| 2016-01-05 | The Missing 11th of the Month | btilly | 4 | 2 |
| 2016-01-05 | Explaining xkcd's “missing 11th of the month” | _ihaque | 35 | 3 |
| 2017-11-24 | The Missing 11th of the Month (2015)First breakout | shawndumas | 136 | 19 |
| 2019-08-13 | The Missing 11th of the Month | poppypetalmask | 2 | 0 |
| 2022-09-21 | The Missing 11th of the Month (2015) | yowmamasita | 1 | 0 |
| 2025-06-18 | The Missing 11th of the Month (2015)Best thread · Latest 20+ point return | xk3 | 224 | 35 |