

Ask YC: How do you read YC? - adduc

Personally I follow the RSS Feed using Google Reader and on encountering interesting items open up the article and comments, favoring if the article sparks conversation.
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raju
Lately I have found myself reading the comments on a article prior to reading
the article itself. I don't know why, but maybe its because the discussion on
YC is invariably better than the article itself. Also, if I see too many
negative comments, I skip the article altogether. I read a lot during the day,
and using the comments as a filter prevents me from adding to that list, if it
be so.

I hope that made sense...

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delackner
I think a lot of us end up hesitating to bother opening an article because so
often the submitted-title is a bad attempt at humor that instead completely
masks the true topic of the article. Titles like "you really want to know..."
are a total waste of my time. KNOW WHAT? If the topic is interesting, I will
click. If it is about something of interest only to you, don't post it with a
title that forces everyone to click just to know what the subject matter even
is.

That said, I always read via google reader, since the actual interface makes
it impossible to say "I have seen all these, don't show me them again!".

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jgamman
left to right - top to bottom. i sometime mix it up a little but i never seem
to get better results.

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revolvingcur
Google Reader - click nteresting items, Ctrl+click to put them in their own
tabs, branch from there.

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joshstaiger
Same here. Plus I've written a crawler that periodically checks items I've
upvoted for new comments/activity and creates an RSS feed accordingly.

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bootload
_"... How do you read YC? ..."_

\- find some articles, /submit

\- read RSS for headlines with my own hack sorting by hacker, points, stories
& replies

\- read /new, then /news, upclick & new tab for good articles, reply where
something grabs my attention

\- read threads, then reply

\- read /comments, /lists when bored

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edu
First I usually skim the fronpage, whenever I see an interesting article I
open the article and the comment page. Scan the article if seems interesting
and is not too long read it, if it is long scan it and read the comment page.
If there is an interesting discussion read the article, else close the article
and comments page.

After reading the full article, if good upvote. Read the comments, if there is
an interesting conversation upvote (if still unvoted) article and comments. If
I have something interesting to add. Comment.

After that, if an interesting conversation was taking place set a mental
interruption on the future to recheck it.

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a-priori
I use RSS (NetNewsWire), pick out interesting-sounding articles, skim the
comments. If it still sounds interesting, I read the article, then read the
comments in detail.

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kyro
I've always just visited the site throughout the day. I find that the homepage
doesn't change much and the new page is always changing, and using something
like google reader isn't the best way of keeping track of discussions on the
home page and new submissions both. Also, I've been surfing this site a lot
more using my iPhone and was just wondering if pg was fine with someone
designing an iPhone friendly version.

~~~
wallflower
The folks from Buxfer (YC Winter '07) have built a nice News.YC web app for
the iPhone (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134386>):

<https://www.buxfer.com/yc/#___home__>

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doubleplus
I check the front page for topics I'm interested in (webdev, Jennifer
Connolly, artificial intelligence, amateur hardcore pornography, general
programming, etc). If I'm really bored, I'll look to see which entries have
20+ comments and read those. If I'm really, really bored, I'll look at the
newest comments. I'm usually really, really bored.

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danielha
Command+L, 'n', tab, enter

at sporadic intervals throughout the day. Many times it's just something to
keep my fingers moving while I'm thinking. I usually just glance through the
headlines and move on. I try to only read noncritical news in the morning when
I wake and later at night.

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mburns
Google Reader, intermixed with various other tech news sites, including
Slashdot, Ars Technica, Digg Technology (ya ya, I know) and Tech Crunch.

With interesting topics, I make it a point to read the comments, too.

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kashif
I dont like Google Reader much. I read the homepage once a day and if I visit
again I only read the new subs.

PS: I use greasemonkey to pretty it up.

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corgan1003
I use google reader as well. When I slack off and end up with 1000+ posts to
read, I just ctrl+F for subjects I want to read about.

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dmcintosh24
I use good reader as well, however I use it on my windows mobile phone alot
more than my laptop.

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pierrefar
RSS & pair of eyes.

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akkartik
my response: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79694>

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thomasswift
i read the comments first then the article, if i plan to comment i read the
article to make sure comments are on-topic.

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jasonlbaptiste
ha, reading right now on my iPhone on the elliptical at the gym

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azsromej
if you can respond while working out you're not working hard enough ;)

then again, I read YC on ass, so I commend you for doing something.

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quimax
Google reader

