Ask HN: How do you keep up with HN these days?
HN readers are grappling with how to filter an ever-faster firehose of posts, especially as AI-related content dominates the front page. Many rely on tools like RSS feeds, keyword and domain blockers, custom clients, and third‑party frontends to surface only high-signal stories or exclude AI topics altogether. A recurring theme is that trying to “keep up” with everything is futile; instead, people advocate scanning headlines, following personal interests, and accepting that it’s okay to miss most posts.
Overall attitudes toward “keeping up”
- Many say they don’t try to keep up; HN is a firehose, and missing things is inevitable.
- FOMO is seen as misplaced: important or truly novel stuff resurfaces or will reach you via colleagues, other sites, or search.
- Several argue you should clarify what problem HN solves for you; casual browsing usually suffices.
- Some explicitly describe HN as an occasional distraction (toilet reading, boredom) rather than something to track systematically.
Simple browsing habits
- Common pattern: open front page (and sometimes /ask, /past, /best), skim titles, open a few interesting tabs, then leave.
- Some rely on visual cues like points/comments counts or comments-to-upvotes ratios as filters.
- Others just check once or a few times a day and accept that most stories and comments will be skipped.
RSS, newsletters, and external aggregators
- Heavy use of RSS feeds (hnrss front page, active, newest with point thresholds) to centralize and skim headlines.
- Weekly or curated newsletters are popular to capture “best of” content without daily checking.
- Alternative front ends (e.g., chronological or “classic” views, top-N-only lists, bots posting top items to other platforms) help with catching up efficiently.
Filtering and customization tools
- Many customize HN via:
- Keyword/domain filters (especially to hide AI, politics, or specific sites).
- Browser extensions, user scripts, uBlock/stylus CSS rules, and custom proxy front ends.
- Clients with features like karma/age thresholds, highlighting active or high-signal threads, or hiding “done” posts.
- Some use AI or simple bots to summarize top stories or learn personal preferences, then read only the filtered subset.
Views on AI content and HN quality
- Strong sentiment that AI topics dominate and feel repetitive, monotonous, or “slop,” prompting aggressive filtering.
- Others enjoy AI content or see it as just the current fad (after Kubernetes, React, etc.).
- Conflicting views on quality: some feel interesting articles are much harder to find; others say the amount of personally interesting content is unchanged or even reduced independently of AI.
- Several note increased volume, longer “megathreads,” more chatty or abrasive comments, and rising toxicity, raising concerns about HN’s future.
Personal organization and coping strategies
- People use bookmarking tools, note systems, and comment-subscription tools to save only high-value items.
- Backlogs of unread items are common and mostly accepted; some readers auto-expire old RSS entries or periodically clear everything and move on.