I always check out the HN comments first. The HN comments don't assault my browsers with popups, ads, awful styling and who knows what else. I may learn what th

I always check out the HN comments first. The HN comments don't assault my browsers with popups, ads, awful styling and who knows what else. I may learn what the article is about (not always clear from the title of the submission) and be warned of other people's reactions (like "WOW that giant flashing thing on page 2 can trigger a seizure!" or "Site hijacks back button!" or even more importantly, "Article is a waste of time, author has it all wrong. Here's an authoritative source which explains why"). I may or may not risk a click at all if there are no comments. I do read the article before commenting though. (Well.... not this time, but it's kind of a meta topic)