Clerical staff at your service. While I'm at it: please don't delete and then repost a story. That's an abuse of deletion and we penalize accounts that do much of it. Instead, use a different URL.
Your "while I'm at it" comment contained one rather specific rule that can penalize accounts. I (and presumably the parent) would much prefer a centralized list of guidelines, rather than trying to remember tidbits of advice sprinkled throughout threads.
Striving to behave well is pretty much the best guideline, and if you incur some punishment unjustly or accidently, then contact the HN moderators.
HN is not a "whatever isn't explicitly prohibited is allowed" system. Instead it flows from general principles, and one of those principles appears to be that if you're caught abusing the system, there might be negative consequences because abusing the system is detrimental to its integrity and probably creates more work for somebody.
We'll certainly add to the HN guidelines over time—and "please don't delete and repost" is the sort of thing we'll add. We probably won't try to make a complete list, though; I doubt that's even possible.
In the short run, we're trying to answer specific questions with more transparency. Baby steps!