Ask HN: How do you *use* HN?

I ask a lot, because we all get something out of the answer or answering a question.

I check it a couple of times a day, but rarely do I go the "new" (which I think I should do more).

I'm subscribed to the RSS feed, and I click through the comments to each article I find interesting. If the comments are interesting, I'll click through to the article as well.

I've never submitted a link, but did a couple of "Ask HN" threads.

Between twice a day and twice a minute depending on how distracted I am.

I usually look for titles that catch my interest, gradually working my way down the page and becoming less selective.

Often I read the comments first.

Usually the HN icon is what I click on in my bookmarks bar when I need to open a new tab in Chrome. So I end up glancing at the site a hundred or so times a day, but usually not for more than a few seconds at at time. I used to spend a decent amount of time on this site each day, but not very much anymore.

As I'm writing this comment, I notice that there are basically no stories at all on the front page that interest me. I like the stories that are more intellectually interesting, whereas everything on the front page is at best topical, although most of it is very derivative even for topical stuff. Right now I don't feel like there's a single story on the front page where I'd learn anything interesting or useful if I read it, and the gossipy article are too predictable for me to care.

I use hn like everyone else. The one unique thing I do is I load the frontpage and run my "hotness sort" bookmark which sorts articles by points plus comments per unit of time. Same for ask hn. I also view long posts in threaded mode to save scrolling.

I check it in the morning, and in the afternoon if I'm bored with nothing else to do (otherwise, I'd be on it all day!).

I often stay around ten to twenty minutes on the site (as interludes to read the comments as I read the highest voted articles).

As a bonus, I'd say that I'm as green as grass on HN; I made my account yesterday after about a week of lurking. I think its signal-to-noise ratio is higher than other sites (I'm thinking of Proggit here) and the comments make for a genuine discussion.

I check it probably 10 times a day, its much better than other "social sites"

I check it at least five times a day, normally reviewing the comments. Favourite posts for me are requests for help, e.g. to review sites or ask a general question like this one, because you can generally learn something from people's experiences of various problems.

1) Usually once or twice a day. It's in my morning read and I read in the evening after work. When I'm at home I read HN on my TV through a Mac Mini. If I'm reading it at work over coffee first thing then I'll use my laptop.

2) If it's my morning read at work then I'll skim through the headlines on the main page looking for information security related stuff, and use instapaper for anything that looks like it's worth reading on the train home. Maybe 5 mins tops over coffee.

If I'm at home on the weekend I'll read the main page on my TV in the morning for about 20 minutes. In the evening I tend to read the main, ask and new pages for up to an hour.

I try to only upvote posts that genuinely bring something interesting and ignore the linkbaits!

Now using SmartPeople http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1584005 Site: http://nasr.ath.cx (it goes to one of my non perso or pro emails), I have selected to be alerted by what some of you are saying. It appears to be a very interesting way to discover the good links & discussions.

the search function (by google) is a little bit hidden (in the footer and not the top-right). yet is a door to a goldmine of wealth for people working on a startups.

pretty much every typical "startup question" has ben answered there in great detail.

besides the search i watch hn about twice a day. i actually started off with giles bowkett's mini app[1] (makes daily overviews of new-posts-of-the-day) in order to make reading hn less racey.. well, give that i now read hn straight from the source, i now accept that i rather have it a bit more racey :)

[1] http://hacker-newspaper.gilesb.com

I like to look at HN and get some inspiration and keep my finger on the pulse of the startup scene.

But the truth is that if you spend more than a little time here each day, then it's no longer career research. It's just another form of procrastination that keeps you from getting stuff done. So enjoy HN, but don't overdo it.

I use my own site to check HN, http://hackerbra.in

In terms of grabbing top comments quickly for articles that take my interest, it's unbeatable.

edit: if someone is interested, they should make a plugin that scrapes HN, to allow hovering over a HN item to see the top comment(s). (it can also scrape my site if it encounters a temp ban on HN -- although Javascript can scrape anyhow, so it could be done client side.)

-- in fact hovering or right-clicking over any Comments links around the web to reveal comments would be awesome instead of having to be forced to click through all the time, including in the rss reader. Also, bookmarking or somehow recording any particular useful comment would also be great. You could also use that bookmark data and similarly send it to a central site, to build up a new social news site based on comments. (it could end up looking like http://hackerbra.in/links and http://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments). Headlines are linkbait now, stories are poorly written, but comments can and do have insight.

Another use would be in hovering over shortened links. OTOH, it could be something webmasters install. The Backtype API would be useful for this, but it is too limited at present (no url lookups.)

About once a week. I just look at what's visible on the viewport and click on what strikes my fancy. Occasionally I scroll "below the fold".

I use HN mostly on my iPad even if the website isnt perfect for a touch device..

Btw does somebody know a website to read HN on the iPad? (something like iCombinator for iPhone but for iPad)

HN has a very high almostSignal-to-Nosie ratio. By that I mean that it has a lot of stuff that looks almost like something very important, but it's just not directly applicable to me at the moment. Kind of like talking to a really super smart interesting person -- but only about stuff they'd like to talk about. It's great to be here, but information is engaging and scattered all over the spectrum. I would say it's like drinking from a fire hose, but a fire hose goes in one direction. This is more being a great swimmer and jumping in a raging ocean. Lots of stuff to enjoy and keep you busy.

Because of this, I'm writing my own app for processing the web. A "browser for the easily engaged". It pulls the articles from all the major tech sites, including ranking, then it pulls the target articles. It learns what I like and don't like by doing Bayesian filtering on the client-side. Sort of a meta meta tech news app.

After all, how would a hacker consume news, if not by hacking it?

I spend more time on the "new" page and the "comments" page than the top stories page. I sometimes check the most active or highest voted lists. I come here sporadically, sometimes not for days (or weeks) at a time and sometimes several times a day. Often, a good comment on the "comments" page leads me to find a very interesting discussion listed under an article whose headline wouldn't necessarily grab me. My bookmark is to my own comments ("threads" page) and I go there first and see if I need to reply to something someone has said to me. Then I look around for other stuff.

site:news.ycombinator.com keyword, keyword, keyword

Despite being an RSS and Twitter junkie, I nearly always visit HN directly (ditto for Reddit) and end up visiting nearly all of the front page items in the course of a day except those I know I won't find interesting from the title alone (right now, for example, the Django release news). I typically visit between 1 and 10 times a day. More if I'm involved in an ongoing discussion.

A few times a week I'll visit /new. This isn't enough but I find it too fast and furious, especially with showdead on. I'd be more likely to visit /new all the time if it only showed posts from users with >100 karma, say.

If news is pot then HN is heroin.

So many interesting topics, so much stuff to learn, so many smart people.

Actual 'use' of HN? I've found a number of people here that I would not hesitate to call friends, a much larger number of acquaintances and a few people that I work with, one on a day-to-day basis.

If I have a question that matters to me I don't hesitate to post asn "Ask HN", and for the most part they are answered in a way that is both enlightening and of a different caliber than what I'd get from other sources.

I check HN for five minutes 0-5 times daily, open tabs that look relevant to my interest, and read as I have time.

I come to HN to look for articles that describe how to do things better/optimize tasks (generally that thing is/task relates to hacking/start-ups). I then think of the broader applications of these ideas.

I almost always start with the comments. If the discussion is interesting, I'll follow the link.

That said, I usually start with the link on PG essays and YC write-ups.

I enjoy reading HN so much that I ended up creating two sites[1][2] just to make reading it more accessible on my mobile phone.

I read HN first thing when I wake up, right before sleeping, and all through the day... often in little one or two minute bursts, saving links for items I want to read later. I start out on the home page, move to /ask then finally /new.

It's a great way to be motivated by reading about people who are creating amazing products. I find myself being pushed to do more when I see others talking about what they are creating.

[1] http://ihackernews.com

[2] http://viewtext.org