Are you reading the article or straight to the comments?

Most of the time I just read the article.

When I do read comments, it's almost always after having read the article.

I skip to comments

Often, I'm checking the comments first to see whether reading the whole thing might be worth my time.

I check the top comments first because a lot of times they make me realize the article is not worth reading. Sometimes the top comment is a one-line tl;dr, or just explains clickbait.

This is even more important for any news regarding science: there's always a comment from someone who actually read the paper and then explains what the article got wrong.

Comments first on HN. I use shutup.css to hide comments on every other website.

Comments before all.

comments first - for sites like this that link to the articles. gotta make sure it's worth it.

on the site itself i read the article first

Straight to the comments. I would only read something if it's less than a screen-long and still contains something I'm going to find really valuable or exciting. If it's longer than that I am to be convinced it's a text of exceptional value and quality before I decide to invest my attention.