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Ask HN: How do you manage to go through so much of good content posted on HN?

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61–70 of 80 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage to go through so much of good content posted on HN?

#61
Don't. It really doesn't matter.

Productivity (if that's your metric) is limited by your ability to continually make good decisions. You can't integrate and apply all the knowledge in any useful sense. Trying to probably makes you less productive and/or happy.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage to go through so much of good content posted on HN?

#62
post #3

I mainly read the comments, rarely the articles themselves. (That's not to say that I don't read articles in general — I do, but I mostly find them via Twitter.) Usually, I'm much more interested in what the community has to say about a given topic or issue than I am about the object-level news.

Reading other comments here, it seems that nearly all HN users read the comments and not the article. If no one is reading the actual article, then that means HN users are reacting to an article title and to each other (also reacting to an article title)?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage to go through so much of good content posted on HN?

#65
post #7

I also use Pocket - each evening I go through my RSS reader (HN is included) and click what looks interesting, I skim the article (10 secs) and if it indeed looks interesting/useful/valuable I save it to Pocket and I add a label. Labels help me to revisit Pocket in a more systematic way and I also re-filter Pocket from time to time.

Can you or anyone recommend some good RSS readers these days? Thanks.

If you happen to run your own server, give https://tt-rss.org a try. It is straightforward and has all the essentials I expect in an RSS reader. There are mobile clients too. I’ve used it for a number of years with good results and almost no maintenance.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage to go through so much of good content posted on HN?

#66
post #3

I mainly read the comments, rarely the articles themselves. (That's not to say that I don't read articles in general — I do, but I mostly find them via Twitter.) Usually, I'm much more interested in what the community has to say about a given topic or issue than I am about the object-level news.

The problem about this is that a LOT of users that seem knowledgeable pull shit out of their ass. I've seen this many times here: I read the article and then the comments and they just end up being elaborate bullshit based on a title and previous "knowledge" (often refuted by the article itself) rather than informed discussion.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage to go through so much of good content posted on HN?

#68
post #3

I mainly read the comments, rarely the articles themselves. (That's not to say that I don't read articles in general — I do, but I mostly find them via Twitter.) Usually, I'm much more interested in what the community has to say about a given topic or issue than I am about the object-level news.

Reading other comments here, it seems that nearly all HN users read the comments and not the article. If no one is reading the actual article, then that means HN users are reacting to an article title and to each other (also reacting to an article title)?

This seems to be a common thing with aggregators in general. As someone who's seen their work posted to Reddit and other sites (or has posted it there themselves), the aggregator topics seem to get a lot more views and comments than the source article does.

I think in many cases, the system comes down to "upvote the topic and comment if I agree with the premise (or what seems to be it), or downvote the article and comment if I disagree with the premise (or what I think it seems to be)"

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage to go through so much of good content posted on HN?

#69
I share to pocket on my phone and create a backlog of interesting articles. Since they're cached I'm able to read some of the lighter ones on the tube to and from work. Worth noting that my backlog grows faster than I can read it.

Unlike the top comment on this post I mainly dont pay attention to the comments apart from an initial glance and I only save the article link to pocket. That's the opposite of my browsing habits on Reddit where I usually pay attention to the comments more than the articles.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage to go through so much of good content posted on HN?

#70
post #3

I mainly read the comments, rarely the articles themselves. (That's not to say that I don't read articles in general — I do, but I mostly find them via Twitter.) Usually, I'm much more interested in what the community has to say about a given topic or issue than I am about the object-level news.

The problem about this is that a LOT of users that seem knowledgeable pull shit out of their ass. I've seen this many times here: I read the article and then the comments and they just end up being elaborate bullshit based on a title and previous "knowledge" (often refuted by the article itself) rather than informed discussion.

This goes both ways. Articles aren't always 100% trustworthy either, and in that case a commenter might just as well offer a valid counterpoint or correction(s).

As with anything, be reasonable. If you're really interested, then use whatever content is available to educate yourself, be it comments, the article itself, or independent research.

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