This postings is now showing 45 points and 45 comments. A few minutes ago it was 44/44. I wonder - what is the significance of the comment/point ratio?
Let us know.
Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
51–60 of 88 posts
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#52Sometimes. 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 also do this for situations where the article sounds like fluff or link-bait, but involves a subject where an intelligent conversation could occur amongst smart people. There are lots of times when the comment threads are more valuable/interesting than the links.
> There are lots of times when the comment threads are more valuable/interesting than the links.
I find this is the case most of the time here. I enjoy reading engaging articles being 'hacked' apart.
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#53This postings is now showing 45 points and 45 comments. A few minutes ago it was 44/44. I wonder - what is the significance of the comment/point ratio?
Now it's showing 50 points for the (parent) article and 50 comments posted... this is very strange.
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#54Great question.
I usually visit the link first then come back to the comments on Hacker News.
It’s like enjoying more seeing a movie you don’t know anything about than reading critics first.
Reading the comments on hackerNews is the main reason I do not activate comments on my website. For me if a discussion needs to happen, it should be where the people found the link. So if you post your link on reddit, HackerNews, Digg, etc. you end up having focused discussions. Each one having a much better quality than mixing every point of view in one place (the comment thread of the website).
Have good day. Thibault
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#55I'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'd actually like to try that -- maybe the first paragraph or so included.
The value of the clean look (to me) is only it's service in providing easy access to the information, and I think leading comment blurbs might be a big win in that regard.
From the mobile PoV it saves having to click (and suffer a mobile experience http+render round trip) on each interesting sounding link to get more information (wherein I might decide the thread wasn't worth it, or the title was too vague and I've already read the comments before).
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#56Always; in fact I often skip articles entirely and just read HN comments, if I already know the gist of what the article is about.
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#57I'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…
You could compromise and just add an expander to each story. If a user is suspicious of the story, they can expand the first couple comments and see what people are saying without going to a new page.
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#58I'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…
At the very least, it would be nice if the "n comments" link were a little bigger and easier to click. I think that would greatly improve the comment-reading, without cluttering up the display too much.
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#59I'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 read from the RSS feed - and I was rather surprised that the main link leads to the other site, and not HN. My main habit with RSS is to go through a feed, opening the interesting links in new tabs, and then read them - I keep forgetting and ending up with a bunch of links rather than the HN comments!
Re: Ask YC: Do any of you find yourself reading comments before the actual link?
#6050/50.
Same here, it all depends about the target domain.
For example I'd never click a Seth Godin, Zed Shaw, or any other self-promotion writer link but the HN discussion tends to be very constructive. I always click links to Wikipedia, New Yorker, Wired, and many other good sources (from experience.)
Perhaps a feature could be a Agree/disagree vote for stories to distinguish from up-voting the HN discussion.