Ask HN: What is your advice to new HN user?

A bucket list type answer:

Don't just sit on the front page. Check out new, comment on someone's new submit. Or try digging up your favorite articles for others to check out. Maybe you'll hit the lotto(front page). Read some Ask:HN. Research something you'd normally use google for using the site search functionality. Try to build up your points to be able to get down vote functionality. Make two accounts and have an alter ego. Try using a throw away. Get into a conversation and consistently check on it/grow it so that you really feel like you're talking to others on here. Quit just lurking. Make some friends and try upvoting each others stuff(not recommended). See if you can find out the real identity of a random poster. Read someone's comment history. Find ways to make your passions relevant and post it! And of course be smart as hell so OP wants to hire you and you end up making six figures cause you cracked HN instead of noobing out on the front page forever...

In other words, HN is ridiculously dope, so discover for yourself how many ways to use it. my 2c.

Enjoy browsing, reading, and getting some sense of what this community is about.

When commenting - try to be insightful and add some value to the discussion, not just jokes or emotional reactions. If you think of a comment as a small blog post - you will do well.

Add your website link or email to your profile, if you write something great, there's a chance people will want to contact you or learn more about you.

Try to avoid getting too addicted to it =) Instead of browsing HN directly(and refreshing the page for updates), consider using these tools:

https://hndigest.com/ - daily/weekly email digest of the top posts.

http://hnreplies.com/ - receive email notifications about replies to your posts.

http://hnrss.org - customizable rss feed of new posts/comments.

The HN community is a subset of the tech community, so take everything (especially the latest hype and politics/ideological stuff) with a gain of salt. Also, as with all online communities, beware that some people view HN with disgust due to negative experiences in the past.

Don't become so addicted you don't do anything else. Honestly, take an hour or two once a week to enjoy procrastinating, reading up on the latest Hacker News, answering the Ask HN questions, but don't become so enamored by it that you aren't doing anything else. Don't go on Facebook either.

Go do something productive with your time.

Note at the bottom of this page are links titled "Guidelines" and "FAQ". Those are you go tos. Welcome!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The ancient advice to new forums of "Lurk more" applies.

If you're conservative, be conservative with stating your conservative opinions. I find that conservative viewpoints are generally unwelcome here.

Same goes for religion, if that's applicable.

Stick with tech topics, and you're generally safe.

I wish I could say this weren't the case, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

As far as sections, like someone else said... don't just stick to the front page.

Personally, I find a lot of value in the "Ask HN:" section, and the conversations that result from those questions.

Comment like everybody is judging.

There's an unspoken scorched earth policy for lame humour and Reddit-style puns (which, btw, is marvelous). Also, intellectual honesty will take you far.

It seems a bit colder here. HN is content oriented. No profile pics, no rep. It matters more what you say than who you are.

Install HN Theme https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernews-theme/n...

The best comments are at the top, AND the bottom.

Don't care about your Karma or downvotes on your comments. It's the internet and someone will hate anything you say.

be as helpful as you can to others.

don't take anything personal, this is a very large diverse community with different viewpoints.

Don't say anything anti-sjw otherwise you will be censored

Act like a sheep or you'll be constantly down voted