Ask HN: What are your heuristics for deciding which HN links to click on?

I don't consciously or systemically apply any heuristics, but if I think back on the topics that tend to pique my interest: Business and VC, economics, infosec, tech politics, FL/OSS drama, psychology / human nature, and oddities that seem out of place here (because those stories must be especially interesting!). Occasionally web dev tools if they look like something I might use — for example, new static site generators.

I nearly always read the comments first and rarely click through to the original story. The comments are the point of HN for me.

1. anything crystal / ruby related

2. rust and golang related stuff, so I can further justify my choice of crystal

3. security exploits

4. dramas, like angry co-founders duking it out on HN, love that stuff

5. philosophy of mind / consciousness related stuff

6. stuff that tells me when I can get a consumer-grade quantum computer (never happens, or can only multiply 3 * 5 for 50 million dollars)

7. anything that sounds like a horizontally and vertically scalable database solution -- been looking for something like citus or google cloud spanner, but with a $5/month starting plan since forever ago. Note: a $90/month starting plan != scalable imo, as it doesn't allow me to justify developing with it.

8. "here is a super fast hash table implementation"

9. "new data structure" (happens almost never)

10. "programming language performance benchmark"

11. microsoft/google/facebook/apple/amazon hating never gets old

12. news that [language I care about] now runs on web assembly (never happens)

13. "RSA encryption broken by efficient factorization of large semiprimes" (world would end for a few days)

14. proof or disproof of p = np

15. autonomous driving stuff

things to avoid:

1. anything related to react/vue, though I might click if it's vue just for them sticking it to react

2. anything about VC stuff, because I don't come here to read that

3. news that [language I don't like] now runs on web assembly (every day)

4. x new javascript framework

I've found that when there are a decent number more comments than upvotes (say 1.25+ comment / upvote ratio) it is generally a controversial topic, probably with a huge amount of subcomments under the top comment. If it is in my domain, I tend to ignore it, as I've often heard both sides many times before and its draining to see debates play out again. If it isn't in my domain and it is interesting, I'll check it out and often learn something. If its outside my domain and not a particularly interesting topic, if i'm bored i may check it out to entertain myself for a bit

for Ask HN, the comment / upvote ratio seems like it indicates a topic that people are interested in and want to share their two cents (like this one), rather than a controversial one

i also click on most links from wikipedia, as any wikipedia entry that gets to the front page seems like it must be very interesting / esoteric. however they turn out generally to be hit or miss

You rock. This is possibly one of the most interesting questions I periodically ask myself... And never thought of asking the HN community! Bravo.

Mostly I click on things that teach me something about programming, things that make me feel like my comment will add to the noise, or things that instinctively make me angry.

I avoid everything about startup entrepreneurship like the plague.