Hacker News Reader

It's 50/50 for me. Here on Hacker News there are many articles where the discussion is worthwhile. On many other sites, it's almost never a good idea to read the comments. And I'm not just talking YouTube.

I'm the same way. Often I will see a link that looks interesting with no comments because it just recently landed on the front page. Rather than click the link, I check back in a few hours to read the comments.

I think it may be a good idea for the top-level comments to have this, but then allow replies to comments not.

You need informed top comments, at bare minimum.

The title and previous experience should convey enough information to understand comments.

It _should_, but, as we know with clickbait titles (which are not prevalent on HN, thank goodness), the title doesn't always convey anything even discussed in the article.