DevDocs is old, roughly 4 years or so; I know it from the beginning.

That being said, not every HackerNews reader is aware of every single project in the wild, so re-posting the link from time to time is a good idea, not only to let more people know about it but also to increase the contributions and donations which may be forgotten after the popularity fades away. I can see this re-posted many more times in the future.

Remember that every year new Computer Science students graduate and and they are going to be the ones saying "First time I see this project" next year. So let the re-posts flow no matter what.

To answer your question, there is no extracurricular community, it's just people like you and me who one day know the project, and next year decide to post it again so the new university graduates can learn about it, that's it.

I didn't know about this either, but I guess people find these things by visiting sites like HackerNews, just like us!

I learned about it from HN during the legal issues with Dash a while back.