There are documentation pages which explain the features you're asking about. Also, search now works. This may seem really unfriendly, but perhaps friction is sometimes a good thing? RTFM and "use search" have been the grumpy welcome of hacker communities for many years, so I guess that's something that has carried over?

The bottom of this page explains the max visits minaway stuff: (http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

Maybe years of SLRN and Usenet have spoiled me - I love the HN layout.

I would like a Usenet style scorefile.