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I love having secret hats, and the challenge of trying to figure out what they are before anybody else is quite enjoyable. However, once somebody has figured out what the conditions are for a secret hat, and has earned the Eureka/Archimedes hat for having done so, can we see the official conditions for the hat on the Winterbash page and the hat popup on our profile pages?

Right now, this information gets recorded by the community on various annual meta questions. It would be nice to see that information in a more official location.

TL;DR: Instead of being secret for the entire duration of Winterbash, I am proposing that the secret hats are secret until somebody figures them out, and then they become public knowledge.

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No, that wouldn't be fun for other users who would like to earn the Archimedes hat too. There is no limit to the number of Archimedes hats that can be awarded for figuring out the conditions for the same hat.

We tend to stop awarding it for secret hats which have already become public knowledge, and thus it's unlikely that users were coming to the conclusion on their own. Once that information is released publicly, you pretty much guarantee that no one else will get Archimedes for that hat - and that's not very fair to our users who really want the Archimedes hat.

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In addition to what animuson said:

  • Some people might still want to figure it out on their own even if there's no chance of an Archimedes hat, or are happy to live a life of mystery. The information is available for those who want, but there's no need to push it in people's faces.

  • The secrets will probably be revealed after Winter Bash is over anyway. (In the past they've all be guessed during Winterbash anyway, but I seem to recall post-WB confirmation.) It's not like we're left guessing forever. Yeah, I know, secret hats are like that really intriguing package under the tree and Dec 25 can't get here quickly enough, but try to hang on. You'll get to tear off that wrapping before too much longer.

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  • As far as I know, all previous year's secret hat were guessed before the end of Winter Bash. If there's one or two that are not guessed correctly, I'd argue we shouldn't reveal the trigger. That would be like the magician explaining the trick. (And hats off to Pops for devising triggers that might not be guessed this year.)
    – Jon Ericson StaffMod
    Commented Dec 25, 2015 at 6:43
  • @FatherChristmas I seem to recall that they were all guessed but that those guesses were confirmed after the end. I might be misremembering. If some aren't guessed and y'all decide not to reveal them at all then that's fine; in that case y'all certainly wouldn't reveal them on the Winterbash page itself, so the OP will just have to wait longer. :-) And yes, Pops did a nice job with these!
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Dec 25, 2015 at 15:52
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    Aww, you guys. For what it's worth, my pre-Bash guesses about how hard it would be to guess the triggers weren't very accurate. Of secret hats revealed so far, I thought five would be easy to figure out, two would be medium and five would be difficult. Hat hunters world-wide continue to be baffled by two "hard," both "medium" and one "easy" trigger. (If you're doing math, you'll see that my numbers don't quite add up. I figured Archimedes was a special case and didn't include it in any of the three categories.)
    – Pops StaffMod
    Commented Dec 25, 2015 at 19:34

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