
Quiet Hacker News (2017) - luu
https://speak.sh/posts/quiet-hacker-news
======
hiq
I personally have gotten more value from comments on HN rather than the links
themselves, but I guess it depends on the topics one is interested in.
Comments are also helpful to avoid reading articles that are not so relevant
or just plain wrong, which happens once in a while.

My solution has been to just keep the links I want to open, but keep them for
later (ideally, have less than 5 such links per day). A day after or so, if I
still think it's relevant (beyond the title which is no longer new to me), I
do open both the comment section and the link. This is especially effective
when I find myself reading too much about certain topics that I know are
toxic.

~~~
dkersten
> I personally have gotten more value from comments on HN rather than the
> links themselves

I agree. Many years ago, I found a lot of great articles here, but nowadays
I'm mainly just here for the comments. I mean, I'll read articles if I want to
reply to a comment, to make sure what I'm saying is accurate, but mostly I
just read comments. Besides, too many articles are hosted by companies who are
very hostile towards my privacy, so its just not worth it.

------
onion2k
The author is right that sometimes a thread will descend in to the usual tired
old arguments[1], but the value I get from reading people's comments _far_
outweighs how annoying I find the tedious stuff. I've learned a ton of stuff
from the comments here over the years.

[1] Which I'm guilty of posting every time there's a front end dev topic. :)

~~~
ShorsHammer
I've always thought of some way to minimise replies (probably a browser
extension, ughh). 1st or 2nd order should be done by default in many places.
Certain types thrive on this stuff, others just simply get worked up at the
first thing they see. I'm very much guilty of this. (First comment for me!)

There's actually some really good content in incredibly popular threads but
it's nearly always overwhelmed by nonsense replies to the first comment.

I guess some people that, but I challenge anyone to close every top level
reply in a very popular article and see exactly how many are at the top.
Basically the same everytime. It's like a virus.

Am a regular in r/space and most things aren't that popular but some things
randomly blow up. There was one thread with well over 1000 comments and right
down the bottom, Only 4 hours after the original post was a JPL employee, who
was working on object in the story, it was highly detailed, incredibly
informative, well-written, and with all the nitty-gritty downsides and
shortcomings of engineering work. I'm guessing very few saw what that person
wrote compared to 400 puns at the top. It's shameful.

~~~
onion2k
_It 's shameful._

No it isn't. There's nothing about the content of the comments on anything on
the internet that _automatically_ means one comment warrants more attention
than any other. The reason why we have voting systems is so the community can
push things to the top. That's tempered by the fact Reddit moves _fast_ so
people who comment later are much less likely to get to the top of a thread,
but really it just shows that people who vote in r/space value puns a lot.
That's the community you're a part of.

It's like the opposite of HN. Every time I post a joke here it's like setting
fire to some karma.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It 's like the opposite of HN. Every time I post a joke here it's like
> setting fire to some karma._

I like it. You _can_ make a joke, but if it's bad, you end up _paying for it_.

I think the problem OP alludes to still exists on HN. While the replies are
sorted (partially) based on their score, they're displayed fully expanded.
That means a mid-quality comment with 200 points that has so much upvotes
because it wasn't bad and was _first_ , will have all of its hundred child
comments displayed above the second-best top-level comment. If the discussions
under the first comment explode for some reason, there's a good chance a lot
of people won't see the second top-level one.

Possible improvement, at a cost of increased JavaScriptitis - auto-collapse
child comments under top-level ones, but in a more prominent way than it's
done now, so that people _would_ usually be inclined to browse them. And for
the love of people in need of CTRL+F-ing for something specific, provide an
"expand all" button at the top.

~~~
blaser-waffle
> I like it. You can make a joke, but if it's bad, you end up paying for it.

To quote John Scalzi "the failure state of clever is asshole"

------
ChrisSD
I find the value of the comments varies a lot by topic. Comments are good in
areas where there are at least a few domain experts who frequently visit. This
is HN at its best.

Outside of that it's much more of crapshoot. The trouble is that if nobody has
any particularly deep knowledge of the subject then it's a case of the blind
leading the blind. People will make arguments that sound reasonable and those
will gather the most upvotes. Even if they're wrong or nonsensical in the
context. It can be worse if people think they know about a subject purely
because it's adjacent to (or looks similar to) something they do know about.
Then you get strong but uninformed opinions.

In this environment a domain expert can be at best ignored or even downvoted
if their comments seem to go against the grain. So they are in the position of
either having to do the "do you know who I am?" dance (which some people don't
like) or hope someone does it for them.

~~~
Balgair
> The trouble is that if nobody has any particularly deep knowledge of the
> subject then it's a case of the blind leading the blind

I'm in bio/medtech and anytime there is an article about health, food,
neuroscience, or any other 'bio-y' thing, the comments are just as you
describe. Sometimes other 'bio-y' people will chime in and set the
expectations correctly, but usually there are a lot of comments that are just
nonsense (or at least it feels this way to me).

I also feel this way when any article about black holes comes up, however, I
am not an expert in astro/particle physics. Still, you tend to see a lot of
child-comments from physicists that try to set the parent-comments straight,
though the wrong outweighs the correct most of the time.

~~~
krapp
The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect[0] should be considered a phenomenon everywhere
on the internet where discussion occurs, not just in media, because most
people claim far more expertise on subjects than they have. I just assume,
now, that anyone on HN discussing any subject other than programming is
probably wrong unless they specifically mention that they have direct
knowledge in the matter. Otherwise, they're as credible as an anon on 4chan.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-
Mann_amnesia_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect)

------
euske
I write HN comments somewhat regularly (like once a week), but my approach to
it is more or less a "note to self". I use the comments to mostly describe my
observations and thoughts. It's pretty much a monologue. When I'm technically
replying someone, that's because my thought was based or inspired by that
comment, and I don't actually expect that person to read my reply. I usually
ignore most of the responses to my comment too. But I try (and enjoy) to make
my comment helpful or useful to someone, in a "my two cents" manner.

That's my two cents.

~~~
stfwn
I do the same. Writing things out is a good way to play around with a thought;
reshape it, morph it, look at it from different angles. A thought in my mind
is too abstract, fleeting and formless. A comment on paper is forced to take a
shape.

Words are not the best medium for every thought, or sometimes it turns out the
thought is not worth spending the necessary writing time to complete, such as
this one.

------
dustfinger
Every article I read, for better or worse, has been filtered. The following
describes my filteres when I am simply enjoying articles posted on HN (My
filter's are different if I am researchinig a topic):

The first filter is whether the article makes it to the front page of HN. This
is followed by a quickly formed opinion about whether the title captivates my
interest. If the first two filters pass, then I will take a couple of minutes
to skim the comments section and decide if I want to read the article. In this
way I leverage the minds of others as a final filter. If the article passes
every filter, then that means that I have remained motivated to invest my time
in reading the article myself. I open each article that passes all of the
filters in a new tab and move on to the next title of interest. Once I reach
the bottom of the page, I have the set of articles that I will read throughout
the day. It is true, that I let other peoples' opinions influence what I read,
but I justify this by reasoning that it would be impracticable for me to read
every article that makes the front page of HN. This will cause me to have a
biased perspective on things, but for me the strategy is one of practicality.
I did read this author's article by the way. I think that the project is
creative and interesting. Thank you for posting!

~~~
melicerte
I often find posts on the "new" page more interesting than the one on the
front page, you should give it a try.

~~~
dustfinger
You know, I am going to try this out. Up until now, I have not been voting on
pre front page posts; therefore I have not been contributing to the front page
filter effect that I take advantage of on a daily basis. I probably won't do
this every day, but for this week I will. Thanks for the nudge!

------
omgmog
For anybody wanting to achieve the same effect while using the official HN
site, you can use the following as a custom user style:

    
    
      tr.athing + tr {display: none;}
    

This will just turn the home page in to a list of links, without any of the
links for comments, upvote counts, etc. on each item.

Screenshot: [https://i.imgur.com/MSsblMm.png](https://i.imgur.com/MSsblMm.png)

~~~
NilsIRL
You can also use your adblocker (e.g. ublock origin) and specify a custom rule
to remove the comments.

That's what I do to remove the YouTube front page.

~~~
noir_lord
I did the same to remove youtube comments, they are incredibly rarely
interesting and I hate the bile catching my eye even accidently.

------
qxmat
I worry that the plasticity of my brain is decreasing as I age. I've begun to
notice that my attention is increasingly difficult to manage. I haven't blamed
HN (yet) but I certainly emphasize with the author.

Tangentally, as a young adult I had severe ADHD/ADD. I stopped taking meds for
it after is ceased causing a negative impact on my life towards the end of
puberty. Sometimes I wonder what would happen to my personality and creativity
if I started meds again. Would I be the same, gain an unfair advantage or
excel at things I've given up on?

~~~
kdelok
I don't think HN can necessarily be to blame. It might just be one of those
"you're getting older, so think things were different when you were young"
things, but I certainly feel I have a shorter attention span and have to try
really hard to pay attention for extended periods. I don't know what to blame,
but suspect that the attention economy is part of it. It could also be that
I'm both a programmer and a gamer, so my brain now expects to be stimulated a
lot of the time.

Also, just in case it's one of those words that you've been mixing up (rather
than a typo), I thought you might appreciate knowing that it's "empathize
with", rather than "emphasize with". I had that for the longest time with not
knowing that the spoken and written versions of "awry" are the same word...

~~~
qxmat
Thanks - I had no idea they were separate words!

------
tcgv
Great that he found out what was making his experience on HN bad and was able
to change that and contribute to others that feel the same.

I personally enjoy browsing HN's comments section to read opinions conflicting
to my own's, and evaluate their arguments. It's a habit acquired to preventing
falling for confirmation bias. I rarely post something in response.

~~~
x3haloed
I came here to say something similar. I'm noticing that I'm drawn to the
argumentative comments, and I think the reason is not that I'm looking for for
a juicy fight, but rather that I'm trying to expand my thinking. Watching the
discussion play out helps me consider views that I wouldn't think of on my
own.

------
shine_3
>If I still had social media accounts, I would absolutely be making
quiet(instagram/twitter/facebook).com to remove the notifications,
gamification, noise and what have you, I think they’re all brilliant tools
whose utility has been downtrodden by companies obsession with having our
attention.

I would support a project in that line with as much contributions as I could.
This seems really important. What I did on youtube was that I blocked the
recommendation-bar on the right side with UBlock and had a plugin that
redirected [https://www.youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com) to
[https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions](https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions).
This made my relationship with youtube healthier.

------
peterburkimsher
Please add (2017) to the title.

I prefer reading the comments because there's no ads and it loads quickly. I
could use an RSS reader, but then I wouldn't see social media notifications
(new messages from my girlfriend) happening in other tabs in the background,
so I prefer to use a browser. Flame wars are something I try to avoid in
comments sections. Writing tl;dr summaries for new articles is something I
enjoy, and earns me quite a few upvotes.

------
kingludite
Lets see, how shall I disagree with the author and make it sufficiency
unreasonable...

For me the similar train of thought triggered when I was part of a [highly
informal] network of bloggers. Everyone went out of his way writing articles
to the best of their ability. Some had similar topics like social media today
but rather than a picture of a cake with "I've made a cake!" under it the blog
post would describe the recipe, its evolution and tried to get at the very
essence of cake and the baking thereof. The difference with forums and comment
sections (where the same authors would post) is that the later have guaranteed
readership. If your blog sucks people will drop your feed in favor of
something else.

Anyway, the article reads like someone who badly needs to get over his
preconceived ideas about RSS, like so many people around here. Hacker news,
Facebook, Twitter, etc are cakes made in a factory, they are not your personal
cake recipe that you've carefully calibrated over decades.

Hating on RSS is like telling your grandma who spend the whole day in the
kitchen that all that cooking is really a waste of time and you prefer a happy
meal or a whopper. Then you pull out your phone and say, don't worry! ill just
order a pizza!

------
SenHeng
I've been here since 2015 and one thing I've noticed in the past couple of
years is that simply browsing HN gives me a kind of dopamine fix. When I'm in
a 'browse HN zone', I voraciously consume any and all content, often times
just lightly skimming everything. This can sometimes go on for hours at a time
and I'll often go over feeling extremely fatigued and having remembered little
of it. This is somewhat similar to the author, because I've noticed the same
arguments over and over again, enough that I get a kick out of watching
oftentimes the same people bickering over the same viewpoints. As I'm so
accustomed to all the bickering, I simply just consume them without thought
anymore.

Weirdly, I get more pleasure out of using reddit nowadays because I can focus
on subs related to my hobbies, discussions around how to get more enjoyment
out of a particular activity rather than just jamming large amounts of general
knowledge into my brain.

------
sabas123
>There’s an obvious trend as to which comments section I am mostly drawn to:
ones with inflamed arguments

I have been lurking /r/programming and HN for over 4 years (still not that
long compared to many) and this is a trend I definitely see. Which is a shame
because this goes at the cost of much more interesting discussions.

~~~
mxcrossb
I’ve been trying to quit Reddit over the poorly disguised political
advertisements that flood it, and so I came to HN hoping to fill some of that
discussion void. It surprises me that HN users think comment sections are
inflamed here, to me things seem pretty tame.

------
gitgud
It's not necessarily a bad thing to prefer the comment section. But yes it's
addictive and a _quiet-mode_ would probably allow people to form their own
opinions from the source, before viewing the debate.

To me anything that - reduces the _hive mind_ effect and promotes diversity -
is a good thing...

~~~
cameronbrown
Doesn't this increase monoculture by preventing those who think there's a
problem with comments.. from commenting?

~~~
johnr2
> Doesn't this increase monoculture by preventing those who think there's a
> problem with comments.. from commenting?

This is probably true, unfortunately. In the last few years I've given up on
most of the forums and mailing lists I used to frequent, due to my low
tolerance of trolls, zealots, and adolescent behaviour. HN is one of the few
places left with a high enough signal-to-noise ratio to keep me reading it.

------
bibyte
Those are the exact same reason why I have stopped reading any threads that
aren't technical. And of course politics. Almost any thread that has even a
hint of politics will always turn into an echo chamber. Where anyone who
doesn't agree with the echo chamber will be down voted.

~~~
navigatesol
> _Almost any thread that has even a hint of politics will always turn into an
> echo chamber. Where anyone who doesn 't agree with the echo chamber will be
> down voted._

Which also leads me to question subjects where I'm less informed or don't have
an opinion. I have to assume that the echo chamber is in full-effect there
too, right?

------
davnicwil
The thing about somebody out there always disagreeing with any position or
opinion you post and nitpicking details is certainly true, and can be
disheartening, but framed another way it's awesome training for improving your
written communication.

Being able to post anything you like and never having anyone nitpick it would
be a little bit like playing tennis with a friend who is much better than you
but goes very easy on you and still lets you win. It might feel good, thinking
that you're always hitting winners, but you're really not. And you're not
improving.

Look at the best comments and commentors here and on places like twitter. What
makes them good? It's that they make their points extremely tersely and
unambiguously. You can disagree with the point, but you can rarely nitpick or
'well actually' the way in which it's made.

It's frustrating sometimes when people do this, you often feel like saying
'you _know_ what I mean by that' \- but the truth is people don't - you've
been ambiguous and communicated the point not as well as you could have. It's
frustrating, but it's actually pretty good training to learn from these
nitpicks, because clear, terse written communication is a really important
skill that's useful in a lot of places in life outside of discussions on
forums like HN.

------
devnull255
I understand what the author is getting at. I myself have read links about new
tools and frameworks and might think afterward, "that's pretty cool". Then
I'll read the comments section where often I might fall into the trap of
hoping others share the same opinion and maybe feel a little hurt and offended
when those hopes are dashed. That is simply the nature of any social media
platform. And it's probably healthier to let the comments section act as an
additional resource on the topic, and one that might challenge our own way of
thinking. In this way, comments are not agents of decline in our critical
thinking. They are instead, part of its growth process, providing us with
differing perspectives that should themselves be evaluated on their own merits
and incorporated into our own thinking about the original topic.

I myself can't imagine this site without the comments, especially for
additional links that are often provided relevant to the post. They are a
great place to deepen one's own investigation of an interesting topic. And
I've often been led to other parts unknown to me when reading them.

------
hiisukun
"...test an underlying contributing factor that I believe led to all this: a
reduced trust in journalism and Internet content on the whole. The comments
sometimes were more fulfilling, informative and truthful than the link itself
- not to mention advert/tracking free."

This was a fascinating thought, that I didn't expect to read most of the way
through the blog post. I think it is a very good sign that the author was able
to consider two quite different perspectives on the same topic: that the
comments were a cyclic predictable pattern capturing his attention for the
wrong reasons, and that at the same time the comments were potentially
valuable as a source of truth and trustworthy information.

Fascinating, and I see some parallels to my own usage of HN. I will sometimes
'vet' an article I'm not sure of, by reading the quality of the commentary to
assess the potential quality of the article. I certainly recognise the pattern
of ctrl+clicking numerous links to read later when time permits.

------
jasoneckert
I'm very new to Hacker News. I joined earlier this year when someone told me
my blog post made page 1 of Hacker News (I've never heard of it prior).
However, I find that I enjoy reading the discussion in the comments more than
the actual posts. Of course, I focus on the engaging discussion posts and skip
over any that don't contribute any value....

------
frankbreetz
I sometimes find myself reading comments without reading the article. When I
do this I usually find half the arguments conflicting with one another, this
usually causes me to go read the article. After that, it is usually very
obvious that most people did not read the article and are commenting based on
the title. They asked questions that are clearly answered in the article, make
a completely unrelated comment because the thought the article was about
something else, or they will make a statement that is disproven in the
article. This type of stuff is hard to police, and I find myself guilty of it.
I would say HN is streets ahead of anywhere else in this regard(Facebook,
Twitter, Reddit... ), but it still happens quite a bit and it definitely
detracts from the interesting discussions that sometimes happen. These
interesting discussions are often better than the articles themselves, so I
will continue to wade through the mindless dribble to find these bright spots.

------
ckastner
> _Reading the comment section of HN for so long has taught me a valuable
> lesson that I will take away with me: no matter what you do, say, think or
> feel, there is someone out there that does, or merely wants to, have the
> opposing action, speech, thought or feeling. And that’s absolutely fine, and
> how the world should be - home to a diverse set of views and opinions, but
> not to the detriment of your desire to build, share, create and form your
> own opinions._

I used to welcome opposing views for the simple reason that I whatever beliefs
or values I hold, I am probably somewhat biased towards them, and critical
input is therefore something extremely valuable to me.

However, more and more, the opposing views are of the type described by the
author above. People are less interested in actually broadening their horizon,
in finding synthesis between thesis and antithesis. More and more, it's just
about finding a position, digging in, and attacking the other with full force.

~~~
navigatesol
> _People are less interested in actually broadening their horizon, in finding
> synthesis between thesis and antithesis. More and more, it 's just about
> finding a position, digging in, and attacking the other with full force._

Do you notice this about yourself, or just other people? If the latter, that's
part of the problem. Everyone thinks they themselves have an open mind and
well formed arguments.

~~~
ckastner
With the exception of certain values that I treat somewhat axiomatic (none of
which are controversial), I'm happy to change my mind in light of a better
argument.

------
jimmychangas
The author has a point, but one of the defining characteristics of HN (in my
opinion) is that sometimes comments are more valuable than the actual link.

Some HN comments are incredibly insightful and well informed, and some threads
have real historical value (i.e. the original Dropbox and Redis posts).

Does someone keep an archive of legendary HN comments that you could share?

~~~
chacha2
[https://danluu.com/hn-comments/](https://danluu.com/hn-comments/)

------
derefr
There are good—I would even say “great”—comment threads, that are just as
worth reading as standalone articles are. Threads where _all_ of the comments
are good, and nobody dares ruin the “mood” of productive conversation by
butting in with the usual argumentativeness†.

• threads where the authors of the post do a “post-article interview” to add
extra information in response to questions;

• threads on posts that are stories _about_ something historical, where in the
comments, a person involved _in_ the history itself (not the author) shows up
and tells more such stories;

• threads on posts about some cool thing the author made, where commenters
point out _other_ cool things the author has made; or point out other cool
things that are _complements_ to the original cool thing (rather than getting
into a debate about _replacements_ for the cool thing.) Threads about new
works by prolific hackers (e.g. DJB), or prolific academics (e.g. Scott
Aaronson), are good for this.

• threads on posts about choosing tool/technology X and the anecdata of its
advantages/disadvantages for the author’s use-case; where the comments are
from other people who either made the same choice, or a choice of comparable
technologies Y or Z instead; and, rather than just being a partisan argument
for their technology, they give a compare-and-contrast of the products in the
product-space X occupies, giving a clinical evaluation of the advantages and
disadvantages of X, Y, and Z _for the original author’s use-case_ , as if they
were asynchronously collaborating with the author on a greater work.

As it turns out, all three of these, in one way or another, are “encores” to
the post. Things that add value _of the same kind_ that the post itself has.

...and then there are bad comment threads. Which is, IMHO, everything else.
(Including this thread! I shouldn’t be in here!)

† I think it’s kind of like street art. Paint a beautiful mural on a wall, and
nobody’s gonna deface it with boring old graffiti. Every graffito thinks
themselves an artist, and so respects good art. Every HN debater thinks
themselves a scholar, and so respects productive scholarship.

——

Honestly, I wish there was a meta-HN, with a lag-time of ~48hrs behind HN,
that just linked to the ensuing discussions that turned out to have been worth
people’s time to read, when judged by the same criteria that we use to upvote
links (“gratifies intellectual curiosity”, etc.)

In combination with a “just the links” feed (as in this one, or just as in
consuming HN via RSS), you’d both 1. get a really enjoyable experience, and 2.
probably feel much less of a need to participate yourself. (I need this,
honestly.)

------
yogsototh
My current cure to news binge is to use RSS inside emacs with elfeed[1]. Emacs
has the great advantage to be quiet by nature. I use spacemacs[2] more
precisely. So in the morning I simply type `SPC a f` then `g r`. That's it.

And very important I use HN feed filtered by number of points (thanks to
hnrss.org):
[https://hnrss.org/newest?points=500](https://hnrss.org/newest?points=500)

[1]: [https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed](https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed) [2]:
[http://spacemacs.org](http://spacemacs.org)

~~~
aasasd
HN itself can filter by the points, afaik. Search for “Undocumented Hacker
News”, it's mentioned there among other features. However, that's on the
site—dunno about the feed.

------
bachmeier
I don't read many of the links on HN these days, but that's because such a
high percentage are behind a paywall. I understand HN's policy, but a big
chunk of what hits the front page is the NYT, and I have no way to read those
articles. Greatly reduces the value of HN.

The reason I haven't completely left HN is because occasionally a personal
blog article like this hits the front page, in which case I do read it, and
only sometimes check the comments.

To relate my comment to the linked article: I'm saying links to paywalled
articles have turned HN into a discussion forum rather than a place to discuss
articles.

~~~
bookofjoe
>I don't read many of the links on HN these days, but that's because such a
high percentage are behind a paywall. I understand HN's policy, but a big
chunk of what hits the front page is the NYT, and I have no way to read those
articles. Greatly reduces the value of HN.

Right now (8:39am ET) there is 1 NYT article on the front page.

~~~
bachmeier
According to this[1], 4% of all front page links (4/day) in 2019 have been to
NYT articles. That was only one example, and it doesn't account for time on
the front page, which is almost certainly much longer for NYT links.

[1] [https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-
trends/?q=...](https://toddwschneider.com/dashboards/hacker-news-
trends/?q=wsj.com&f=domain&s=text&m=frac_items&t=year)

------
amelius
Imho, the ability to filter useful from useless information is very valuable
and should be cultivated. What better place to do this than the HN comments
section, since it contains both kinds of information? :)

------
Shivetya
Pretty much I fell into a similar rut.

I think HN should not allow voting until you open the link. However being able
to flag should be kept regardless if you open a link or not. My favorite
feature has been the favorite tag. Both as a reminder but also for sites
flagged by work.

The flagging without opening the link is to make it easier to suppress the
indirect but sometimes direct political tripe that filters in during election
cycles. I don't think comments/stories are PAC managed here but it could
happen one day.

~~~
krapp
>I think HN should not allow voting until you open the link.

People would just complain about HN tracking them, and would default to just
opening the link for voting privileges, or just skimming the article. There's
no technical solution to the problem of getting people to actually RTFA first.

------
jumbopapa
I got towards the end of the post and found myself thinking thinking "I wonder
how the comments feel about this"? He makes a fair point, but my rebuttal is
that I do learn interesting things from the comments here, but it is important
that you read the article and know that someone may feel different about it
than you. It's important to stand by your convictions and not give into
groupthink.

I think the "quiet" brand would be very useful on a service like Reddit.

------
htk
Every now and then I open the active[1] section looking for interesting
discussions, run a scriptlet to remove greyed-out comments[2], and add to a
TTS software on my phone to listen to.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/active](https://news.ycombinator.com/active)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20006310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20006310)

~~~
blaser-waffle
Why delete the grayed out comments? Not trolling, am curious.

I feel like by skipping those you're just bowing to the will of the hive mind
without knowing what the alternatives could be.

~~~
htk
I'm aware that I do lose some gems and though provoking discussions, but IMHO
the majority is uninformed/offtopic/poor-quality.

------
xashor
Not really using it, I sort the frontpage by (votes/comments) to filter
'Comment sections that will devolve into discussions (see: condescending,
pedantic arguments)' and their links: [http://xash.in/hn/](http://xash.in/hn/)

~~~
NilsIRL
What are all the columns?

~~~
xashor
\- Original position on the HN frontpage

\- Score

\- Link

\- Upvotes

\- Comments

------
DanBC
> I simply open the comments and am able to deduce the gist of the link
> through the unfolding arguments.

Hold on, the HN comment section is sometimes a tire fire of people who don't
know what they're talking about giving their uninformed opinions.

You need to read the articles to see whether the comment section is addressing
points made in the article.

(This is why I disagree with mods about posting links to paywalled content.
Some of those paywalls are now hard to bypass so the comment threads are full
of people who haven't read the article.)

~~~
amdavidson
Did you read the _whole_ article?

    
    
      After all this I noticed a reduction in critical 
      thought, my ability to form my own opinion on topics, 
      as I had a) stopped reading the damn links, b) would 
      skim what I needed off of the most upvoted comment, 
      c) would then take that comment as gospel.

------
melicerte
> There’s an obvious trend as to which comments section I am mostly drawn to:
> ones with inflamed arguments.

I come here because of the value of some comments but this, above, as soon I
can feel a flame wars starts, is the reason I stop immediately reading
comments on a topic.

------
sus_007
> _After all this I noticed a reduction in critical thought, my ability to
> form my own opinion on topics_

Having felt similar, I've committed myself to only check out the comment
section after I've gone through the damn article itself.

------
namelosw
Why, most of the times I read the first few comments then decide if I'll click
the link. Unless I can tell the content is what I want from the title and the
domain.

People on HN are quite good at calling out bullshits from articles.

~~~
diminoten
Comments on HN call bullshit too readily, because it's easy to be a cynic. You
can operate an entire career as a cynic and be rewarded for it, much in the
same way cool kids can safely hate on everything and keep their cool status.

It's easy to criticize, and 10x harder to create.

~~~
hiq
> Comments on HN call bullshit too readily

Too readily for what purpose? You don't seem to disagree with OP: the fact
that somebody wrote an article that you would not have been able to write
yourself does not entail that it is worth reading, especially if it spreads
some misconceptions.

There is already a lot of good content about many topics on the Internet and
in offline sources, so why not be more demanding?

~~~
diminoten
It's not "more demanding" it's "overcritical".

The benefit comes from exactly the thing you're superficially asking for; it
_seems_ "higher quality" to be cynical towards things, as if you're
"discerning". From it you can get respect from people who aren't very
credible.

The problem is you miss out on good ideas and the more credible people don't
generally take you seriously.

------
hycaria
I like reading comments, for the chunks of the poster's life they reveal.

------
painted
I found this small script quite useful [https://github.com/lrusnac/hn-
notifier](https://github.com/lrusnac/hn-notifier)

------
AlexCoventry
This is weird. I usually find something in the comments more insightful than
the articles. I've gotten pretty good at skimming over the dross, though, I
suppose.

------
jacobush
If one could also upvote the articles from there, it would be perfect. A weird
thing is that if that page is very successful, not many comments will show up
here. :-)

------
nicklaf
Yes, this is a good idea:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS)

~~~
Traster
From the article:

>Why not just use the RSS feed?

>I do not use RSS.

~~~
Zak
That's not really a _why_ answer - not a good one anyway. If someone built a
customized cutting tool for a specific task, "I do not use scissors" wouldn't
be a good answer to "why not just use scissors?" if they were indeed suitable
to the task.

------
chocolatkey
Could we have a dark mode please like the post itself?

------
kebman
Yet here we are, browsing the comments. :)

------
winter_blue
This is awesome. If HN could provide a toggle/option that turned off comments,
that'd be great.

~~~
bcraven
Try this: [https://rickyromero.com/shutup/](https://rickyromero.com/shutup/)

Available for iOS, Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

------
widowlark
>The front page is more than enough to keep you entertained for the day.

Glad I have this guy telling me how to live

------
rco8786
My experience on here basically mirrors OPs perfectly. I’m definitely going to
try this out.

------
afpx
I usually skip past posts that have more than a couple dozen comments. That
helps a lot.

------
personjerry
Why build a server when a browser extension with three lines of CSS will do?

~~~
username3
No extensions on mobile.

~~~
the_duke
Unless you use Firefox.

~~~
sus_007
or the Chromium-based Kiwi.

------
vectorEQ
lets post comments he won't read :d... like ,thanks :D

------
s_T_e_v_o
That has to be one of the best advertisements of all time!

------
floor_
I find the n-gate summaries to be much more informative.

------
shareIdeas
HN has biased mods and since it's only 1 board, we only get to see what mods
want us to see.

Curated content is okay, but I got a feeling theres lots of fake news.

