Ask HN: How do you read Hacker news? • Hacker News Board

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

#11

Post by mschwar99 » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 3:50 PM UTC

I come to the HN web site on slow work days or when I need a breather and generally look at front page stories or glance over the Ask HN list.

I noticed what seemed like a pattern: stories with a high ratio of points to comments were often more valuable and the discussions more interesting. Entries with more comments than upvotes are frequently pop culture-y or bike shedding discussions.

So to try and see a "best of" without lower value discussions I threw together a Twitter feed that lists stories with high points and a high point to comment ratio: https://twitter.com/HighSNHN

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

#12

Post by acedanger » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 4:06 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #8

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…

Thanks Barry, I think my profile says I've been here all of 49 days at this point (or sometime in the recent few days).

I've heard of HN for a long time but never visited. Now it's my go to site for interesting and tech-related things.

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

#13

Post by ahmicro » Sat, Nov 03, 2012, 1:28 PM UTC

mschwar99 wrote: post #11

I come to the HN web site on slow work days or when I need a breather and generally look at front page stories or glance over the Ask HN list. I noticed what seemed like a pattern: stories with a high ratio of points to comments were often more valuable and the discussions more interesting. Entries with more comments than upvotes are frequently pop culture-y or bike shedding discussions. So to try and see a "best of"…

Thanks for this awesome twitter account.

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

#14

Post by loungin » Wed, Nov 14, 2012, 7:53 PM UTC

Read the article, then back button (caches are friends). If it was a worthwhile article, I click the link to the comments. Never more than one tab related to HN, keeps tabs organized.

Oh, and Hi :) I lurk a lot too.

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

#15

Post by crazydiamond » Fri, Nov 16, 2012, 4:39 PM UTC

loungin wrote: post #14

Read the article, then back button (caches are friends). If it was a worthwhile article, I click the link to the comments. Never more than one tab related to HN, keeps tabs organized. Oh, and Hi :) I lurk a lot too.

Sometimes article first, sometimes first few comments to see if article is worth reading. e.g. the link about 'Linus not reading code' was quite a misnomer and I should have checked the comments first. Also, i use Pentadactyl which allows for vim keys -- works great on this clean, imageless site.

I tried loading HN in elinks, but the More button gives an error?

Strangely, I don't see a box to post. Only one or two posts have a "reply" link, so I had to use that.