Depends on the section and topic. New posts section is article first, then read the comments and add my own. There are two reasons I visit the HN front page in

Depends on the section and topic. New posts section is article first, then read the comments and add my own. There are two reasons I visit the HN front page instead of getting all my news off comment-free aggregators like Google News or more specialized equivalents. Reason #1 is that often HN surfaces articles on topics that I wouldn't see anywhere else without a lot of digging through noise. Those I usually click straight through to the article and skip the comments. Reason #2 is that sometimes I've already read about a topic elsewhere and feel strongly about it and want to express myself or hear how the larger community is thinking about it. Because someone is wrong on the internet! Those I dive into the comments first. Occasionally an article will satisfy both reasons, and then I'll do both but the order of operations depends on how well informed I already feel about the topic. The better informed, the more likely to start with the comments.