I couldn't find any additional info on this site except the Guidlines. Can the users explain:<p>- the Karma use (points?)
- Is 20 Karma when your able to see the down mod capability
- why Google is the only way to search the site
As far as searching goes, there is also that old favorite: brute force linear search.<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3</a><p>...
25 points is when you get downmod<p>Some people have written external searches for news.yc, but google on site:ycombinator.com is mostly the way to go. I figured PG would write a search for news.yc before the release of Arc, but he didn't, so we'll get an internal news.yc eventually or never.