

How to read Hacker News – what mistake I made for 2 years - nickfos

I am reading Hacker News for the last 2 years. It's been a really good source of information relevant to tech and startups, which I am interested. Recently I became a member to ask a question.
Not much feedback came back except from some kind advice from PG.<p>My next submission involved an analysis about the future of YC, which got only one feedback.<p>&#62;&#62; Who are you?<p>Quite a way to handle an opinion expressed.<p>Now I noticed one thing.  I was doing something wrong for the past 2 years. I would only read the pages that are listed in the “Hacker News” tabs.  Quite a mistake I think.  Over time I would check the  pages again and see the same posts, because they were “rated” high. I don't know who and how rates the articles (of course I read that if you want to make it to the top you call your buddies clicking your article), but it clearly does not provide a real good sense of the articles submitted.<p>Now I believe a lot of people provide really valuable input and I have to browse through to see what's interesting. From now on I am going to check the “New” tab just beside the bold “Hacker News”.  I counted roughly 300 posts published in a day, which I can skim through in 10 min and select the postings I found relevant.
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Skywing
The listing of new articles is what I always read. It's what I check the most.
I'll skim over the top articles once a day, or so.

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cmontgomeryb
I'm doing this more and more too. It's easier than on a lot of larger sites
such as Reddit as the signal to noise ratio is much more in our favour, and I
do find interesting stories that never make it near the front page.

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Mz
I've said something similar (ie that I think it's a mistake to spend too much
time on the "home" page, basically) a couple of times or so, like here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2047397>

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nickfos
Maybe it would be a good thing for Hacker News to explain this little detail
to new readers of the list. I had to post an article first, to really check
how post ranking works.

I am not saying that some articles do not deserve to have a better chance of
reading, relevant to popularity. Instead I believe it would be valuable to
Hacker News to have more informed readers. Otherwise there is a big chance
that the "popularity" ranking can be mishandled for a number reasons, from
people trying to have a "top" posting.

