How do you keep up with replies to comment threads on HN?

So there are solutions but understand this was done by design. The HN creators fee that back and forth comments can rapidly degrade into a war or words. This appears to be very true if you look at Reddit.

Initially I hated this, now I love it

For replies to my own comments, I use the "threads" link.

I use https://f5bot.com/ to get an email when one of my projects is mentioned here.

For tracking threads where I want to see every comment, I wrote a little tool called hacker-news-to-sqlite which I can run against a thread ID to populate a SQLite database with all of the replies. Then I can sort by created date descending to see the most recent at the top: https://datasette.io/tools/hacker-news-to-sqlite

https://hnreplies.com is built and maintained by @dangrossman and sends you an email every time you get a reply

Honestly I try not to. It's better for my mental health just to comment and leave it. I'm not perfect at this but I'm working on it.

When I'm feeling brave, curious, calm, not anxious, and generous with my time, I'll click on "comments". This doesn't happen very often. I try to leave self-contained comments that add to the asynchronous conversation (collection of thoughts around the topic, anyway), understanding that what I submit will be here indefinitely and is searchable. Hacker News is the only digital social media platform I participate in on a regular basis, and even then I try to let some days pass between engagement. My reaction to spending time on Facebook and Twitter and Reddit was anxiety, so I've gone back to mostly reading books to learn from other people, sometimes inspired by HN comments--thank you all!

I appreciate the friction that limits runaway back-and-forth conversations with internet strangers; it promotes in me more consideration of what people are writing here, because I am more free to notice what I'm feeling and decide what to do next.

I don't. In fact to keep some sanity I only login to comment, then log back out. I found myself being too karma obsessive, annoyed if down-voted, etc.

The threads are collapsible in the threads UI, so I keep them collapsed and if there is something with > 1 child comments, I check it out. Probably more than I should, but enough that some time has passed and I can look back at it more objectively.

The serendipity of the site is that I can forget I made a comment and find someone has responded to it later on. A few of mine even blew up into long threads after I had forgotten them, and it was nicer to read the discussion by other people than to be responding to it. The slow/calm design aspect of it helps to refine my writing into something I can look back on without cringing too much. The low-notifications aspect of the site is a very nuanced feature.

My solution is to not bikeshed. Talk about things which are of interest to you and don't dig after what might get you upvotes.

As long as you are polite and don't expose anyone's fragile ego you occasionally have an interesting discussion.

If a thread discussion interests me l, whether or not I respond in it, I bookmark it in a dedicated folder ("THREADS") located in the toolbar of the browser.

3-5 times per week, I use the "open all bookmarks" option by right-clicking the folder and if often results in 5-15 tabs immediately opening.

On each tab, I start by pressing ctrl-F with my nickname to see where I wrote and whether someone engaged.

Often, I'm more interested in what others will contribute to the main topic rather than engaging myself into it, so I intentionally ignore the page for a few days, until I have the impression that the dust settled. Then I read the entire thread.

I can't remotely express how much reading other HN users contributions has helped me in many aspects of my life, I see HN threads as a gold mine of useful information.

Try “threads” next to “new”.

For keeping track of replies to my own comments, as previously mentioned there's the threads link at the top of the page, as well as https://hnreplies.com/ and https://hnnotify.xyz/.

You can also use https://hnrss.github.io/ or http://hnapp.com/ to make RSS feeds of various types.

If there's a post that is particularly interesting and you want to be able to keep abreast of new comments in it, I've found the HN Comments Owl[0] browser extension particularly useful for this. I bookmark the page, and when I return to it I see new comments highlighted.

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

https://hnnotify.xyz/

I made a Safari extension (iOS/Mac) that highlights new comments: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hn-comments/id1602932281 It's for new comments in general though, not exactly what you're asking.

Not much interest so far. Maybe the price is too high? Since I made it primarily for myself there's at least one happy user.

I just glance in threads every once in a while and respond if I feel like it. HN will rate limit you sometimes so it disengages me from flamewar style threads - which seems like the intention. Rate limiting makes you take time to think about what you want to actually say or even say anything at all. Overall, I think the UX is "bad by design" because they don't want this place to be like Reddit and Twitter which is just toxic and exhausting.

I usually just don't. The UX is just terrible. Sometimes I get a reply while still browsing the same thread and will respond but otherwise don't bother to check.

For replies to my own posts, I go to the "threads" page.

For replies to others' posts, I keep tabs open for a few days and manually refresh.

What I try to do is upvote whatever I’m replying to so that it at least can sort of act like a notification through karma.

I just look at the threads tab every day. Or more often if I'm engaged in a responsive thread.

I don't. Keeping up with comment threads is something I do at work, not in my free time.

I use feedly rss and save interesting hn links, I’m not able to keep up with the volume so it will be a few days until I look at the comments and they are typically matured by then

If it was actually important then you wouldn’t need notifications

I have subscribed to the RSS feed of responses to my comments.

I just click "threads" every now and then and scroll through and see if there are any replies to read, or that I would want to reply to in turn.

Fire and forget.

It actually bothers me to know that I can find links back to my comments. That can only lead to reaction comments due to butthurt. No good.

https://hnrss.github.io/

My little tool [1] lets you track replies to your comments, or set up keyword notification.

[1] syften.com

I just check my karma and review the comments if there is a delta either way.

Upvote everything after I read it.

Who cares what people say?

They all talk to themselves, anyway.