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

Ask HN: How do you read Hacker News?

7 pointsrouli8 comments

I've been using Google Reader for the last couple of years to read Hacker News. Reader was a good option in the early days, but today the amount of daily submits makes this "mission" intractable, and the signal to noise ratio makes it less enjoyable.

With so many options to choose from (https://spreadsheets1.google.com/ccc?key=tCo5BIN61ciUkDjS2aLqjOA&authkey=CIeUndcL&hl=en&authkey=CIeUndcL#gid=0), what do you use? I may be tempted to create yet another application if someone can point to a good feature missing in the existing set of solutions.

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I spend 80% of my time on HN perusing the front page, usually checking comments before the actual articles, and 20% of the time checking the 'new' page.

I read it several different ways.

Pressed for time, I use google reader and flip through the backlog rather fast. When not way behind, I check each one, again through google reader, and manage on weekends to often clear the queue.

I also check the postings and comments of several of my favorites to see if they have spotted anything interesting that i have missed. I do this when my time is even more limited.

If I am able to drain the queue, I check "ask" or "comments".

And of course check "threads" to see if there are any replies to my comments.

I seldom visit the home page. It seems that whenever I do, I have already seen at least the title.

It might be a bad sign that I have such a thorough multi-pronged approach.

I've been using Google Reader since it was first available.

I don't know how or why, but over the past 6 months I've actually converted from Google Reader to a combination of HN+Twitter.

I think the content is just more relevant and curated this way.

how do you avoid redundancy, meaning seeing the same news items on both HN and Twitter?

I rarely read the same thing since so much (curated) info is provided. If I do, the title usually gives it away. And regardless, if it's breaking news, it is usually on every news source. That's a problem you can't avoid. I always had multiple news sources reporting the same thing in Google Reader, and I still face it.

That's exactly my current way to stay up to date on news, and it's using much less time per day for me than Google Reader.

I gave up on on keeping track of the homepage -- there are just too many submissions nowadays.

Usually I randomly load the front page a few times a day, and read a story if I find something interesting. If I have some time I take a look at ask, threads and perhaps new. No doubt I'm missing a lot of the interesting stories due to the increasing traffic. Sad, but whatever. I learnt a lot from stories on HN, but during my most productive periods I did not read HN at all.

I go to "threads"* first. I check to see if someone has replied to me since I was last here and if it needs a reply (or at least an upvote). Then I typically hit "comments" next. A good comment is very often what draws me to the discussion page for an article. After that, I check out what's "new". If it's a big yawn, I will check either "ask" or the homepage. Actually, I have been known to scroll down to "lists" and check "most active" before I bother to go to the homepage. I really spend relatively little time on the homepage.

* For some bizarre reason, my bookmark has defaulted to someone else's threads page, so I actually start there. Sometimes I read their comments before going to my own threads page, sometimes I don't.

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