One thing though, if the site's unreachable, often in the comments there's a mirror or a summary. If you can't turn the a into a:visited, you'd never get the link to show up if the site gets overloaded by the HN effect.
Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
11–20 of 25 posts
Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#12I prefer using the comments/discussion themselves as an indicator to whether I'll find the article a worthwhile read in the first place - how often do users actually comment/discuss an article without reading it beforehand? What's the point in that?
Yup. Too many times have I slogged through six pages of text only to visit the comments and find, "This article was complete bullshit, and here's a well-reasoned argument citing excellent sources explaining why you just wasted your time reading it".
Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. The order I use: read the comments, read the article, and THEN post a comment if I have something to add.
Perhaps it should just prevent you from writing a comment before reading the article.
I like to read the article first, get a feel a of what it's about and then read comments to see further analysis. Reading article first let's me think about it before I get influenced (negative or positive) by reading the comments.
I agree, commenting without reading the article and only reading the comments is a sure-shot way of making a mistake.
Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#14Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#15I prefer the inverse. Reading the comments from an educated audience first, then diving into the article with a more firm understanding of the landscape.
To play the devil's advocate, if you read the comments before reading the article it's very easy to fall into the "hivemind" way of thinking without even noticing. If you read the article first you can formulate your own opinion individually and unbiasedly.
Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#16I prefer the inverse. Reading the comments from an educated audience first, then diving into the article with a more firm understanding of the landscape.
As a point of note, there's research on this topic. Comments influence/bias how people feel/think about the content they read: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/...
You're not just getting landscape, you're getting the messy human battlefield of human opinion (sometimes for better, often for worse).
Personally i wish there were a plugin that would prevent voting until you've opened the link and spent at least a minute on page :P
Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#17This is almost ironic, since the people who install this are the ones who are conscientious enough to need it the least.
Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#18I'm looking for a tool to sort and show comments according to time. Specially for Ask HN and Show HN.
Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#19I very much prefer to first read the comments because it gives me quality data to determine whether the article is worth a read or not.
Re: Show HN: RTFA, a Chrome extension to hide HN comments until you read the article
#20I prefer the inverse. Reading the comments from an educated audience first, then diving into the article with a more firm understanding of the landscape.
As a point of note, there's research on this topic. Comments influence/bias how people feel/think about the content they read: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/... You're not just getting landscape, you're getting the messy human battlefield of human opinion (sometimes for better, often for worse). Personally i wish there were a plugin that would prevent voting until you've opened the link…
I think more often for better, at least for this forum. I read commentary first more probabalistically based on the hype-sensationalism character of the title. I dont subscribe to the hivemind theory, in almost every thread there is well-argued commentary falling on both sides of the issues presented.
I don't want to reward linkbait and hype. A pdf link on the efficient implementation of the radon transform or compiler theory is much more likely to get an unfiltered click from me.