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

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

#61

Post by aaavl2821 »

aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #24
aaavl2821 wrote: post #16

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…

Why is it draining to see debates play out again? I know what you mean though, I feel same way, but just curious your take on it.

For me it's most draining when observing debates about the field I work in where the comments involved display a mixed level of knowledge of the subject. A lot of times the consensus opinion will in my eyes be under informed or missing some context, and actively harmful to a productive dialogue. So I feel a sense of frustration and helplessness. i work in biotech, and biopharma is an incredibly politically visible and controversial industry now, and I feel like a lot of the public discourse is driven by people who mean well but haven't taken the time to understand how the field works

Of course, it is absolutely critical to have diverse perspectives, but I feel like everyone could row in the same direction if we were on the same page

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

#63

Post by z3phyr »

For the main page:

1) Anything which has high number of votes and moderate amount of comments is a good technical post.

2) Anything with high number of votes and more or less equal (or higher) amount of comments is a controversial post.

3) Anything with very high votes and a few comments is a very niche tech post I generally keep an eye on.

For everything else, I just keep an eye on my favurite topics: Emulation, Systems Level Programming, Gamedev

There are some posts which do not cross 100 Mark, but still seem to be gold. Trust your favourites

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

#64

Post by carapace »

If you want pure technical crunchy hits of great goodness (no pol no fluff no bs) the best heuristic I've developed is to look for the things that reach front page with 30~40 pts but have almost no comments. These usually tend to be PDFs of research papers describing some awesome but highly advanced or technical cool thing, right on the edge of comprehensibility.

My theory is, we're all crouched around like proto-humans before the Monolith, upvoting and hoping someone bold and clever will touch it, or better yet, that one of the aliens who put it there will show up and tell us what it is. ;-P

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

#65

Post by nitwit005 »

Security vulnerability articles are often good. You get an in depth look at a piece of technology and problem solving related to it.

Announcements of company shutdowns can be interesting. The posts themselves tend not to be informative, but the comments can be quite insightful. There are almost always customers who chime in.

I'd fully ignore hype of the moment topics like cryptocurrencies or AI. Good articles on these subjects exist, but they are drowned out by noise.

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

#66

Post by walterbell »

aaavl2821 wrote: post #61
aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it draining to see debates play out again? I know what you mean though, I feel same way, but just curious your take on it.

For me it's most draining when observing debates about the field I work in where the comments involved display a mixed level of knowledge of the subject. A lot of times the consensus opinion will in my eyes be under informed or missing some context, and actively harmful to a productive dialogue. So I feel a sense of frustration and helplessness. i work in biotech, and biopharma is an incredibly politically visible an…

Applies to journalism, not only HN comments.

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

#68

Post by kickscondor »

ivm wrote: post #59

I wrote a simple extension for hckrnews.com to hide submissions based on words and domains: https://gist.github.com/ivmirx/66a0015884d44297ea05a8c54d935... I filter out all the languages and tech that I don't use, corporate news, US news, crypto news, and some bad journalism.

This seems like a great idea which I wish was in higher prevalence - designing a simple algorithm yourself that you can understand easily and which can't be gamed, because it is unique.

This seemed to be the promise of spam filters - you get to train them yourself! The difficulty is that it becomes so complex and vague that you can't undo its biases easily. It also reinforces the past at the expense of closing openings for the future to leak in.

Thanks for the code!

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

#70

Post by waterhouse »

mindcrime wrote: post #49
stephengillie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I almost never click through on the source link initially. Too many on HN use this "hack" to avoid reading the article. It can become somewhat humorous when an entire comment thread debates points clarified in the first sentence of TFA.

That is a fair point.

I think reading the comments first is a fine strategy if you haven't decided to post a comment of your own. If you do comment, as a good citizen you should probably check the article before submitting your reply.
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