Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news?

#1

Post by acedanger » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 1:05 PM UTC

tl;dr - Do you read the story or the comments first?

tl - I'm a new HackerNews user. I love it. The posts are interesting and the comments are (usually) thought-provoking and typically provide more information that the original article.

When I first started lurking here, I would open the article in a new tab and then read it. Then I started opening both the article and the comments in their own tabs. I would then read the article first, then the comments.

Over the past few days, I noticed that I've shifted a bit, opening both the article and the comments in new tabs, but reading the comments first.

So my question to you, seasoned HN users, is "how do you do it?" Generally speaking, article or comments first?

Re: Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news?

#2

Post by chrisblackwell » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 1:15 PM UTC

I think you should always read the article first so you have context. If you only read the title first, and then read the comments, you might be getting misleading information.

The problem with reading the comments is the sheer amount of them that are crammed into a small space. I have setup a user style sheet to change the font to 16px and the line-height to 24px. If you spend a lot of time reading the comments, you may want to considering doing the same.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news?

#3

Post by thinkingthings » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 1:30 PM UTC

I generally read articles first but quite a few articles I've already read something similar so then just read comments.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news?

#4

Post by acedanger » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 1:34 PM UTC

chrisblackwell wrote: post #2

I think you should always read the article first so you have context. If you only read the title first, and then read the comments, you might be getting misleading information. The problem with reading the comments is the sheer amount of them that are crammed into a small space. I have setup a user style sheet to change the font to 16px and the line-height to 24px. If you spend a lot of time reading the comments, you…

I'll try that. Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news?

#5

Post by mercurial » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 1:49 PM UTC

Comments first. If the comments are interesting enough, I read the article. I never comment without reading the article.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news?

#6

Post by acedanger » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 1:59 PM UTC

mercurial wrote: post #5

Comments first. If the comments are interesting enough, I read the article. I never comment without reading the article.

Agreed, I never comment without reading the article first.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news?

#7

Post by vividmind » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 2:05 PM UTC

Look at the link/article first. If I'm interested in the topic I'll read comments.

I read both the main page and occasionally switch to new topics only.

That's about it...

Re: Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news?

#8

Post by bmelton » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 2:51 PM UTC

First of all, welcome to HN Pete -- I didn't realize you were on here.

Secondly, to answer the question, whichever appeals to me more. If it's a new programming language, or a new library, I'll generally go to the comments first and look to see the general opinion of it.

If the title is abstract, or not clear as to what it is, then I might open the article first (example from yesterday, "Do You Wanna Touch[1]"

If the title sounds appealing, or straightforward, like today's "Here's the simple rule you need to know when using a foreign ATM[2]", then I'll likely open the article first.

Generally, I open both in new tabs and close them as I consume them.

While I normally don't comment on the article before reading it, I sometimes comment on other comments without having read the article. If there's an article about Python, and somebody says, for example "But Python doesn't even have a print function", I can safely comment on that without having read the article.

[1] - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/11/do-you-wanna-touch....

[2] - http://transferwise.com/blog/2012-11/choose-local-currency-a...