How do you track comment threads in HN?

I don't. I say my piece, and let it lie. Sometimes it is taken well, other times it invokes healthy discussions, sometimes it is ignored, taken poorly, or I am corrected and downvoted. None of those reactions require me to keep constant tabs on it. I do check my history on occasion to see what gets positive vs. negative responses, and try to use that as critique to become a better member of the community.

Just guessing here, but I don't think HN was designed for engaged prolonged discussion. If it were, they probably would have implemented such features as can be found in other platforms. That could transform it into something never intended.

Personally, I think people put too much focus on comments. Many are trying to persuade others of a view (and hence are impervious to true discussion). Comments are useful to the extent they provide new information or links directing people to other similar content. I think the limitations on HN comments put the emphasis on the latter purpose and away from the former.

I use a service called HN Notify to get email notifications when one of my comments has been replied to. It seems to work quite well. https://hnnotify.xyz

(To the author of HN Notify: if you're reading this, thank you!)

I mostly use the "threads" link at the top to keep track of any replies to my own comments. As far as tracking other people's comments, if you know the user's ID you can also use their link. For example mine is: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=freedomben

There's a neat RSS feed service that I sometimes use also, although my power just went out so I can't dig it up right now. Will try to report back.

For pull, click on threads.

For push, set up https://hnreplies.com/ or a similar site. Will only give you replies and not updated karma counts. (edit: and be aware of linking your email and hacker news username if relevant for you)

I have a custom tool for this: https://datasette.io/tools/hacker-news-to-sqlite

It provides me with a command-line utility for fetching all of the comments in a particular thread into a SQLite database, for example:

    hacker-news-to-sqlite trees hacker-news.db 27897211

For threads that I'm actively involved in (probably no more than a few times a year) I will run this script about once an hour - then I can use "select * from items order by time desc" (usually in Datasette) to see the most recent comments.

(The initial goal of the tool was to archive my own comments, which can be done with "hacker-news-to-sqlite user hacker-news.db your-username" - I run that on a cron)

Emacs users are familiar with nnhackernews (https://github.com/dickmao/nnhackernews) which picks up comments on stories you've read (and hides comments for stories you didn't).

The ‘Hacker News Enhancement Suite’ browser extension highlights new replies on the comment pages, including the ‘threads’/‘your comments’ page. Still a ‘polling’ workflow, but better than nothing. Also adds a few useful links in the header, and makes the front page a bit better-looking.

https://github.com/etcet/HNES/

(There's a downside that it breaks the ‘more’ links on paginated comment pages.)

Weirdly it seems that third-party Android apps for HN haven't bothered with doing anything similar, checking for replies in the background and popping up notifications. That would be pretty much perfect, and isn't really too complicated.

I go to my own page and click on "comments" which shows a list of my recent comments.

To see new replies in existing threads highlighted, hckr news: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hckr-news/mnlaodle...

To track replies to my own comments, already mentioned https://hnreplies.com/

I built https://hnstream.com/ which provides a realtime feed of comments. It can be used as a building block for fancier things. For example, our company (and others) use it for monitoring keywords.

For keeping up with replies to my own comments, I still just refresh the page, which is a little sad. :P

I pay people less than they're worth to do that for me and then bask in all the karma. When they get demotivated I hint there might be a new position opening up soon or say something nice about one of their comments.

Seriously though, you get karma by posting stories, balancing what really interests you with what HN looks for in a good story. The more interesting stories you post, the more likely people are to engage with you in comments. Surprising news sometimes makes for a good story, but the most engagement comes from those that either provide an unusually clear illustration of a problem, or would have significant long-term implications if the technology or issue described were to become a norm.

As for keeping track, I just use the Threads link or look at my submissions manually. There is little correlation between how passionately I feel about something at the time of posting and how HN will value it.

If I've asked something I'm hoping for an answer to, I will check the threads link at the top when visiting HN. Else I only look at that link when it looks like my karma has increased.

Sometimes karma increases due to an old comment, and I'm not sure if someone replied.

Subscribe to the RSS feed at:

https://hnrss.org/replies?id=xcambar

For more options see: https://hnrss.github.io/

I made a little bookmarklet a while back for keeping up with new comments in real-ish time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25424560

I mostly use it when I share one of my own blog posts and there are many sprawling replies/conversations that I want to engage with

You can use a chrome extension to tag people; this helps you to track people you care about. It is called Social Cat https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-cat/hhiomok...

I use a plugin that shows new comment counts since my last visit and that highlights new comments[0].

HN is beta testing a similar feature. I'd encourage them to add the new comment count as well if they haven't.

[0]https://github.com/insin/hn-comments-owl

I just manually go to my comments in my profile and look for any new comments on them.

> I see myself keeping a tab open to my latest submitted comments and refreshing frantically to see if any new reply has been posted.

IMHO that's not a good thing. I bet you've got more important things to keep tabs on.

Try the "Refined HackerNews" extension. It might help.

https://github.com/plibither8/refined-hacker-news

There's a feature for this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27005768

I use https://hnreplies.com/ and also the /threads link at the top.

I read it on my iphone using the Hack app. Before they had this feature I’d always forget to reply, even in my own Ask threads

https://hnrss.github.io/

I specifically use Materialistic on Android as a reader, so points for each comment aren't shown.

Top menu bar, threads?

I subscribe to the RSS feed of replies to my comments.