HN Explorer

Ask HN: Is it wrong to read the comments first?

5 points by mparlane ↗ HN
When there is a top story with quite a few comments already, I tend to read them before clicking the link. Basically a way to check if an article is worth reading.

Do other people follow this same process?

7 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 15.0 ms ] thread
mcgain
Absolutely. Unless the title really grabs me, I will gauge the quality of the article by a quick look through the comments.
spdy
Sometimes i dont even read the article at all.
mparlane
I think the best comments are the ones where someone just pastes the "important" bit.
damian2000
I often do this when its a link baity article title e.g. like "OO sucks, and this is why ..." or similar
kevinconroy
That's like asking if it's wrong to eat your pizza crust first. Some people will claim sacrilege, others may nod in agreement while they wipe pizza sauce from their face.

Either way, you can't go wrong.

polyfractal
I always click the comments link first. If the first set of comments look interesting, I'll read the article, the come back to the comments and read those.

I probably read 60% of the articles after skimming the comments.

logn
Just don't comment before reading the article or this place will turn into slashdot.