Live data from Hacker News

Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 88 posts

Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?

#31
I'm surprised how many people read the comments first. Should I pull the beginning of the leading comment text up onto the front page with the link, like Gmail does with the beginning of the message body?

Or would that mess up the clean look, and fill up mobile screens too fast? There are other possible solutions short of that. E.g. I could add a button people can click on to say that an article is linkbait, or mistaken, or whatever, and display icons to indicate this.

Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?

#33
post #4

Sometimes. If the headline sounds preposterous, I sometimes check the comments to see if it has been locally debunked before clicking on the link to the article.

I think I do the opposite. If it sounds like it's going to be ridiculous/controversial/unusual I like to read it myself first and see what my unbiased thoughts are. If it sounds like something easy to agree with I usually just want to see if anyone has a unique perspective on it.

Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?

#34
always, especially when there's 0 comment so i can be the frist!!!

just kidding, seriously, i check the people and how deep the comments' tree is first

if it's too deep, there's high chance of two person fight or grammar nazi in action

if it's too shallow, the article is not interesting

i like 3 levels deep (5 at most)

Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?

#35
post #31

I'm surprised how many people read the comments first. Should I pull the beginning of the leading comment text up onto the front page with the link, like Gmail does with the beginning of the message body? Or would that mess up the clean look, and fill up mobile screens too fast? There are other possible solutions short of that. E.g. I could add a button people can click on to say that an article is linkbait, or mista…

I think it's fine as is. I often scan the comments (not just reading the first one). I'd bet most of the comment readers do the same.

Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?

#39
post #31

I'm surprised how many people read the comments first. Should I pull the beginning of the leading comment text up onto the front page with the link, like Gmail does with the beginning of the message body? Or would that mess up the clean look, and fill up mobile screens too fast? There are other possible solutions short of that. E.g. I could add a button people can click on to say that an article is linkbait, or mista…

One feature I've always liked is when forums set the mouse over text to display the first n lines of the post. Makes it much faster to figure out if you want to read a topic if the title doesn't contain enough information. Also doesn't clutter the display of the page, because visually it's no different. Of course, given that editors can edit the titles of submissions on HN this is less of a problem.
Post reply on HN