Ask YC: How do you read YC? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: How do you read YC?

10 pointsadduc22 comments

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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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...

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!".

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

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

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.

"... 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

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.

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.

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.

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__

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

RSS & pair of eyes.

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

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

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

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.

Google reader

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