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I just received my first Winter Bash 2015 Secret Hat, so I decided to start the traditional Secret Hats and how to get them spoiler question.


Note: Please edit the primary list of secret hats with definitive answers only. If you'd like to discuss the hats further and/or work towards identifying what their triggers are, please do so in chat as the comments here are not meant for extended conversations about them.

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  • 76
    If you report a secret hat here, please use the >! spoiler formatting so as not to ruin it for the rare folks who want to figure it out on their own
    – Undo
    Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 1:41
  • @ghosts_in_the_code Why wouldn't it be allowed?
    – Eran
    Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 10:49
  • @Eran There were people last year who said that the Eureka hat and revealing of secret hats should be banned. Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 11:04
  • 26
  • Can I exchange the hats by BitCoins later in spring?
    – ott--
    Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 21:15
  • 6
    @ott-- Pfft, we don't except Bitcoins only unicorn dollars.
    – Taryn StaffMod
    Commented Dec 14, 2015 at 21:25
  • what about eureka hat? Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 0:18
  • @rnrneverdies meta.stackexchange.com/a/270791/180276
    – Doorknob
    Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 0:32
  • @Doorknob冰: Huh? So they're not Secret Hats? Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 0:34
  • @KevinGuan: Nope. They were public hats from last year.
    – Jon Ericson StaffMod
    Commented Dec 16, 2015 at 0:12
  • @JonEricson: Oh, that's fine. Didn't know that :P Commented Dec 16, 2015 at 0:13
  • 2
    @Shule It's not - you can see all the non secret hats here - winterbash2015.stackexchange.com. Secret hats will only appear on that page after to get them.
    – Eran
    Commented Dec 17, 2015 at 9:32
  • 2
    @Shule Secret hats have the following description: "this is a secret hat".
    – nicael
    Commented Dec 17, 2015 at 9:33
  • 4
    I have read GoT and live in great fear that you earn the Onion Hat only by cutting off your fingertips. Commented Dec 22, 2015 at 16:54
  • 1
    Related: Winter Bash 2015: Hats Off (Do You Want To Know A Secret?)
    – kenorb
    Commented Jan 7, 2016 at 12:03

1 Answer 1

184

007

007

007 is earned by reaching a score of 7 on an answer of yours where both the answer and the question have 0 comments.

Why not just call it "7"?


Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

Ask a question tagged [bug] with a +10 score, that has an answer with a +10 score. Confirmed as such, status and accepted answer status don't matter.

Not the admiral's most important work, but her most famous.


Archimedes

Archimedes

Archimedes is earned by correctly guessing the trigger for a secret hat. It is this year's equivalent to previous years' Eureka.

Solve these riddles and it's yours. (Sound familiar?)


Cleanup Crew

Cleanup Crew

Cleanup Crew is earned by deleting 10 of your own comments on posts that fulfill certain criteria: the post was edited after the comment was posted, the edit was made by the owner of the post, and the owner of the post is not you.

It's not garbage until it's served its purpose.


Edward Edwards

Edward Edwards

To earn this hat, you must win a bounty even though a competing answer had already met the criteria for the bounty to be automatically awarded.

Tahiti, 1791.


Flip Flop

White Flip Flop Blue Flip Flop

It exists in two varieties, blue and white. You get this hat for voting or posting on December 22nd (the usual time zones rules apply here - starts about 14 hours before it's December 22 in UTC).

It's actually just one dress hat, which will become more obvious in better lighting.


Flying Tiger

Flying Tiger

Answer a question with a -3 score that later goes to +3, and your answer is +5. This is very similar to last year's Red Baron.

It's important to know your history... in more ways than one.


Hairboat's Revenge

Hairboat's Revenge

Hairboat's Revenge is earned by commenting on one of Jon Ericson's posts, or by replying to one of his comments. It cannot be earned by doing this on a per-site meta, only on main sites and Meta.SE. This hat is in retaliation to one of last year's hats, which was the same except that it was targeted at abby hairboat.

Turnabout is fair play.


It’s Always 5 O’Clock Somewhere

It’s Always 5 O’Clock Somewhere

It’s Always 5 O’Clock Somewhere is earned by posting a question when it is 17:01 on Friday somewhere in the world. The question has to be upvoted to count.

Rejected hat name: "What Are You Still Doing Here?"


It's Over 9000

It's Over 9000

Ask questions that accumulate 9000 views together. Can be earned in one question, or multiple. Potential limits not identified.

One not familiar with the meme might argue that a better name would be "They're Over 9000!"


Odinson

Odinson

Closing/Flagging a post as a duplicate before it is dupehammered by a gold-badged user, or be said gold-badged user.

What if Mjolnir were made of gold?


Onion Knight

Onion Knight

TOR - The Onion Router. Second word. Concept of anonymity: post a question that received at least three anonymous feedback pseudo-upvotes from visitors who did not have full voting privileges on the site.

What's a better hint, the first word, or the second?


Sun Wukong

Sun Wukong

Sun Wukong is earned by writing a post on a meta site that receives at least 5 upvotes and at least 5 downvotes.

Mostly a good guy, but not always.

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  • I hope this is just as simple as seeing father christmas's profile and look onto his hats on how to earn them see here: stackoverflow.com/users/1438/jon-ericson
    – Kym NT
    Commented Dec 28, 2015 at 5:39
  • 5
    @bleh no. There was an answer listing Onion Knight questions but some over-zealous person deleted it. Some had as few as 5 votes, some never reached the hot network questions (some couldn't e.g. this question because it's on meta). Every theory had some exception: some had only one answer, some had no comments, some had no downvotes, some had less than 600 views, some had no accepted answer, some were the user's top post while others weren't even their best of December... The mods appear to be deleting or closing all attempts to collaborate on this, so I guess we'll never figure it out :-( Commented Dec 28, 2015 at 22:41
  • 2
    ...also, some had never been editted, and I think a couple had no comments. I can't check because the list was deleted, but I think virtually the only thing the onion knight questions had in common was, they'd been favourited at least once (but we can't see who by). Maybe it's something about who favourited the question - e.g. a gold badge holder for one of its tags, or the top user for one of its tags. Commented Dec 28, 2015 at 22:59
  • For Cleanup crew, I believe helpful flags counts and not 50 comments because I didn't delete 50 comments so far yet I got the cap.
    – 286110
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 10:32
  • @Firelord - it definitely has nothing to do with flags. its the only thing that has certainly been revealed about it as far as I am aware. Pops told me in chat because Pops had already told someone else almost the same thing but i thought i saw a loophole and Pops shut it down. I wanna say it has to do with deleting comments which were posted before an edit and then only after the edit has been made. I have no idea about the count.
    – mikeserv
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 20:44
  • @user568458 Argh, I just got Onion Knight, looks like I'm not going to find out why! Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 9:09
  • @JamesThorpe looks like you got it for this question? space.stackexchange.com/posts/13296/timeline views less than 500, good accepted answer, quite a few upvotes, tweeted, favorited twice. I think most onion knights get tweeted and I'm sure they all have 1+ favorites Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 9:47
  • @user568458 Yep, that's the one. In answer to a comment in this thread too - I'm pretty sure that no comments have been deleted from it Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 9:48
  • @user568458 Actually, checking again now, some comments have been pruned off the answer. I thought they were still there when I got the hat, but now I'm not so sure... Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 9:55
  • 1
    @James I think that other comment was about the Cleanup Crew hat. It's really confusing now the moderators have deleted all the hat-specific discussions. They should have only deleted the ones about solved hats, they've really made a mess of this and taken the fun out of it. Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 9:57
  • I think we get the onion hat if we gain a lot of reputation in a day... :/
    – undo
    Commented Jan 3, 2016 at 7:00
  • Cleanup Crew ... chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/26568634#26568634 ... Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 14:02
  • 1
    @Mari-LouA They should make a blog post like this one later today. Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 15:12
  • @TheGuywithTheHat thanks, I shall wait with bated breath Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 21:17

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