

Ask HN: How do you read Hacker News? - rouli

I've been using Google Reader for the last couple of years to read Hacker News. Reader was a good option in the early days, but today the amount of daily submits makes this "mission" intractable, and the signal to noise ratio makes it less enjoyable.<p>With so many options to choose from (https://spreadsheets1.google.com/ccc?key=tCo5BIN61ciUkDjS2aLqjOA&#38;authkey=CIeUndcL&#38;hl=en&#38;authkey=CIeUndcL#gid=0), what do you use? I may be tempted to create yet another application if someone can point to a good feature missing in the existing set of solutions.
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yan
I spend 80% of my time on HN perusing the front page, usually checking
comments before the actual articles, and 20% of the time checking the 'new'
page.

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wglb
I read it several different ways.

Pressed for time, I use google reader and flip through the backlog rather
fast. When not way behind, I check each one, again through google reader, and
manage on weekends to often clear the queue.

I also check the postings and comments of several of my favorites to see if
they have spotted anything interesting that i have missed. I do this when my
time is even more limited.

If I am able to drain the queue, I check "ask" or "comments".

And of course check "threads" to see if there are any replies to my comments.

I seldom visit the home page. It seems that whenever I do, I have already seen
at least the title.

It might be a bad sign that I have such a thorough multi-pronged approach.

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dshankar
I've been using Google Reader since it was first available.

I don't know how or why, but over the past 6 months I've actually converted
from Google Reader to a combination of HN+Twitter.

I think the content is just more relevant and curated this way.

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rouli
how do you avoid redundancy, meaning seeing the same news items on both HN and
Twitter?

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dshankar
I rarely read the same thing since so much (curated) info is provided. If I
do, the title usually gives it away. And regardless, if it's breaking news, it
is usually on every news source. That's a problem you can't avoid. I always
had multiple news sources reporting the same thing in Google Reader, and I
still face it.

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metachris
I gave up on on keeping track of the homepage -- there are just too many
submissions nowadays.

Usually I randomly load the front page a few times a day, and read a story if
I find something interesting. If I have some time I take a look at ask,
threads and perhaps new. No doubt I'm missing a lot of the interesting stories
due to the increasing traffic. Sad, but whatever. I learnt a lot from stories
on HN, but during my most productive periods I did not read HN at all.

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Mz
I go to "threads"* first. I check to see if someone has replied to me since I
was last here and if it needs a reply (or at least an upvote). Then I
typically hit "comments" next. A good comment is very often what draws me to
the discussion page for an article. After that, I check out what's "new". If
it's a big yawn, I will check either "ask" or the homepage. Actually, I have
been known to scroll down to "lists" and check "most active" before I bother
to go to the homepage. I really spend relatively little time on the homepage.

* For some bizarre reason, my bookmark has defaulted to _someone else's_ threads page, so I actually start there. Sometimes I read their comments before going to my own threads page, sometimes I don't.

