from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do you read and follow the discussions on big threads?

by L0in on 7/13/24, 9:52 AM with 79 comments

I'm trying to read discussion from a thread with 133 comments, on a topic i find interesting, but after a few comments i get overwhelmed. How do you do it?

  • by GuB-42 on 7/13/24, 11:27 AM

    It took me a while to realize that there is a "prev" and a "next" button next to every comment. It makes navigation much easier when there are long threads. Using [-]/[+] is another option.

    If the problem is just the sheer amount of data and not navigation, you can simply bookmark the thread and come back later. The algorithm usually does a good job getting the best comments on top after things have settled down, just read these. Plus, if you forget about the topic and don't come back to it, maybe it wasn't that interesting after all, that's a good filter.

  • by jszymborski on 7/13/24, 12:11 PM

    I begin by reading the top comment, if it's interesting I'll read its replies, if it's not I'll collapse it's replies and move down until bored.

    Most big threads have many replies and far fewer top comments so 133 can become much smaller this way.

    I also have no problem quitting as I scroll down. On big threads that have been up for a while, the insight tends to fall off with the number of votes as you keep scrolling.

  • by bsnnkv on 7/13/24, 1:21 PM

    These days I plug the article into https://kulli.sh which aggregates all the comments across HN, Lemmy, Lobsters, Reddit etc. into a single feed which I can quickly filter by source, discussions or order reverse chronologically.

    When I've had enough of a particular comment thread or source, I click/tap to minimize it and continue with the next one.

    I like having all the comments on an article in one place, not just for the convenience factor, but also because it gives me regular glimpses outside of my bubble and shows me how different communities, including ones I don't necessarily agree with, are discussing the same topics.

  • by unraveller on 7/15/24, 2:57 PM

        javascript: (() => {     const id = window.location.href.match(/\d+$/g)[0];     window.open(`https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=story:${id}&sort=byDate&type=comment`)%20%20%20})();
    bookmarklet shows you the latest story comments and you can usually tell where they belong or dig in to find out eg:

    https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

    reddit style comment threads: https://hacker-read-it.netlify.app/item/40965892

    there is also chan style: https://hnchan.netlify.app/thread/40937119

    cleaner hackerdaily tree style: https://hackerdaily.io/40955693/comments

    flat style: https://ditzes.com/item/40937119

    There is also one I cannot find at the moment which let you click and open each comment thread in the right side of screen, that was very good. edit: found it: https://hzn.jero.zone

  • by aendruk on 7/13/24, 12:58 PM

    I use a short userscript to “mark as read” comments on hover. They just get a different color so I can hop around and know where to resume. It’s particularly helpful with active threads where new comments appear in the middle.

  • by Leftium on 7/14/24, 2:19 AM

    Try viewing this thread via my HN web app: https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/40952952

    It does a few things to make viewing big threads easier:

    - Collapses large threads into a toggle button showing the number of replies in that thread.

    - Highlights the OP

    - Follow any timestamp link to "focus" on that sub-thread, like this: https://hw.leftium.com/#/item/40953431

    - The author of the parent comment becomes the highlighted "OP."

    I have a bookmarklet that toggles between viewing on HN and my web app.

    My app was heavily modified, but original credit goes to https://hackerweb.app/. The original author had an idea to make HN threads more like Reddit threads, which he may have implemented in the mobile app rewrite:

    - iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hackerweb-hacker-news-client/i...

    - Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cheeaun.hacker...

  • by OJFord on 7/13/24, 11:04 AM

    I minimise threads that get more narrow or argumentative than I'm interested in for a particular topic.

    Sometimes in a particularly large discussion I'll do that even for top-level comments without replies that I've either read (and won't reply to/not interested in replies to) or skimmed/read enough and decided I won't read.

    Help others by voting (both directions) and flagging/vouching where necessary.

  • by andyjohnson0 on 7/13/24, 10:31 AM

    I typically use the "next" links (above each post) to jump to each top-level comment, drilling down if appropriate.

    Other than that, I try to resist the urge to read everything. Its almost always better to absorb the gist of the conversation than to try to absorb it all.

  • by lproven on 7/13/24, 11:10 AM

    I just... read them all?

  • by Jare on 7/13/24, 1:00 PM

    I skim top -> bottom, read what catches my eye, skip the reply tree to posts I'm not interested in, and when I am not getting value I stop and move out, regardless of reason for not getting value (direction the discussion takes, posting quality, my mood or attention, etc). I almost never revisit later, I don't use any navigation helpers like [-] or prev/next.

  • by pdimitar on 7/13/24, 10:36 AM

    If the topic is interesting for me I just wait a day or two so the comment activity subsides and then just collapse each comment I read. Works perfect.

    For threads I am interested in but want to comment immediately, I only collapse those comments that I don't find interesting -- and as above, go back a few days later to read the others without constantly having new ones added in real time.

  • by muzani on 7/13/24, 11:07 AM

    There's the [-] button on the right which hides a subthread. Then go to the next. On particularly huge ones, just go to the next page.

    From that, it's like a party. Just go out and talk to someone at random. Past a certain level of discussion, there's going to be repeated conversations on the topic anyway.

  • by RobertJaTomsons on 7/13/24, 10:29 AM

    It always depends on the community. On Hackernews, for example, I only read the top 5 comments and then check the thread 2-3 times later to see if anything has changed. On reddit, for example, I don't read any comments at all because there are too many bots replying.

    Otherwise, I try to keep my own thread when I read the comments. For example, when I read an article about a topic, I try to find an extremely positive point of view from the comments, but also an extremely negative point of view and then link this to my own thoughts.

    As already mentioned in the thread, I would like to have an online tool, for example, which reduces comments to a clear point and thus makes reading easier for me.

  • by lapcat on 7/13/24, 10:40 AM

    If you want to read every comment in a thread, https://hnrss.org/item?id=

    Otherwise, though, HN itself has a terrible format that's nearly impossible to follow.

  • by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 7/13/24, 9:34 PM

    I sometimes see HN commments that suggest readers prefer nesting. I do not. I dislike indentation; it is distracting. I prefer left justification. I use a text-only browser that presents threads as flat when tables are disabled. I can search through threads of max length using vi mode keystrokes. Much faster than using a graphical browser. Also, I do not use colors so, e.g., "greying out" comments has no effect. All comments appear in the same color textmode font. I decide what comments to read without unsolicited "curation" from voters or flaggers.

  • by PaulHoule on 7/13/24, 9:59 AM

    I’m thinking about making a tool to do this, I haven’t quite gotten to loading a comment thread but I have loaded 250k images and also 400 from Evernote. Next in line is to load some unwieldy discussions, particularly from a site with a horrible comment UI such as Arstechnica.

    I’m particularly thinking about how to make sense of badly organized threads from Mastodon and similar things.

  • by ColinWright on 7/13/24, 12:27 PM

  • by saagarjha on 7/13/24, 8:13 PM

    You’ve got to enter the thread with the expectation that there are idiots posting drivel that you can leap in to correct, obviously.

    Seriously, though, reading 133 comments usually takes like two to three minutes total. You need to decide whether you want to spend that much on this site doing that or not. I expect for most people the answer is “no” and I commend them for their self-control.

    For topics you actually really care about, you’ll find it a lot easier to read through the comments. You will learn which comments to skip (nobody wants to read a rehash of “does anyone else think all developers are lazy and software is so slow now”) and which ones are actually interesting to read.

  • by krapp on 7/14/24, 12:47 AM

    I don't bother trying to keep up with everything. I'll follow /newcomments and I have a browser plugin that shows when a thread has new comments but beyond a certain point it isn't worth it. 90% of comments aren't worth reading anyway,

  • by kawera on 7/13/24, 4:48 PM

    This extension marks new comments with an orange vertical bar, plus some niceties: https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news

  • by impure on 7/13/24, 6:04 PM

  • by vasili111 on 7/15/24, 7:56 PM

    If the discussion is about the interesting topic I will start from top and go to bottom while collapsing discussions which I have read with “-”.

  • by new_user_final on 7/13/24, 10:56 AM

    I usually/only read comments with replies to get different opinions and go to next sibling comments if child comments aren't interesting to me anymore.

  • by Jensson on 7/13/24, 10:57 AM

    I look for comments with responses. Comments with responses are usually more interesting, that filters out like 90% of comments.

    If those comments were interesting I read more.

  • by paulcole on 7/14/24, 1:57 AM

    I just look for somebody who’s a know it all and start to troll them. Don’t really care about any comments other than that.

  • by dsr_ on 7/13/24, 11:30 AM

    It's quite easy, as long as you have threading, quoting and read/unread flags equivalent to 1990 Usenet.

  • by mathfailure on 7/13/24, 10:22 AM

    There was an internet meme explaining that: "ain't nobody got time for that".

  • by oumua_don17 on 7/14/24, 5:08 PM

    This thread itself is now a good source to try all the suggested nav options!!!

  • by joey_spaztard on 7/13/24, 1:30 PM

    A mouse with a scroll wheel and all the comments fully expanded on one page and a high-resolution monitor showing lots of lines of text at once.

    The page-down button is a distant second. I find using a laptop without a scroll-wheel mouse mildly displeasing. A laptop with a screen that can show a quarter of the amount of text that my desktop PC can do is infuriating.

    Are you trying to read long threads on a smartphone or tablet, pawing at the touchscreen with your finger?

  • by solardev on 7/13/24, 8:44 PM

    You can use a different frontend (like Harmonic on Android) too.

  • by uzername on 7/13/24, 1:13 PM

    I use the HACK app, a hacker news reader app, for android. It has collapsing sections and jump to next top level comment. Between these two functions reading long threads even with deeply nested comments isn't too bad.

  • by smitty1e on 7/13/24, 4:18 PM

    The little minus sign to collapse the comments is key.

  • by tetris11 on 7/13/24, 10:44 AM

    Skim for keywords you're interested in, decide from a glance whether or not a comment chain is just two people passive-aggressively fighting semantics (and whether or not those semantics matter to you), scroll to the bottom to see if the dead comments have anything useful to say and rescue them if they say something interesting (albeit not popular)

    Don't internalize everything you read here, just a quick dip down for some interesting perspectives, and then you resurface with those endorphins and wait for the next hunt

  • by jarule on 7/13/24, 1:25 PM

    Skip anything with more than three sentences. Long-windedness needs to be punished.

  • by gsich on 7/13/24, 10:46 AM

    Tree structures suck for that. Linear style all the way.