Methodology
The project measures repeated independent rediscovery on Hacker News. It does not score whether we personally like a link.
Two membership groups
Candidate
At least three submissions by two known submitters over two years, with two breakout events in different years and at least 365 days apart.
Hall of Fame
At least five submissions, three distinct submitters, and three calendar years, plus two qualifying events from different submitters at least 720 days apart.
Breakout events
The Hall requires two strong HN responses to the same link.
- Major event
- 300+ points or 100+ comments
- Supporting event
- 100+ points or 50+ comments
- Independent
- Different known submitters
- Longitudinal
- At least 720 days apart
Comments can satisfy either response threshold even when points do not. Either event may occur first. Only these countable history requirements determine Hall membership.
Strongest-record order
Strongest record is the default order inside Hall and Candidates. It uses a capped blend of breadth, longevity, repeated traction, and distinct submitters. Hall membership is calculated separately. Raw totals, the current date, type, topic, domain, and page liveness are excluded from the order.
Recently resurfaced
Recently resurfaced orders items by their latest HN submission with at least 20 points. Later submissions below 20 points are ignored. The site does not assign activity or staleness states.
Identity and publication
URL variants are resolved to stable item IDs before membership is calculated. Redirect and archive corrections may change where a public button points. The item’s HN history, membership, Strongest-record order, and Recently resurfaced order remain attached to the same identity. Six links are held back while we verify where they point.
Limits
HN attention is noisy and reflects HN’s audience, timing, titles, and moderation. A known username is only a practical proxy for a submitter. First seen means first appearance in the resolved HN corpus, not original publication date. Living entities are labeled and may change over time.