[stackbutterflow]

9 out 10 times never read the article

I also do that. Most non-news articles aren't better than the average two paragraphs HN comment, but they are 10 times as long. Time is precious and at some point who has the time for yet another "[strong opinion about some technology/pattern/that's how we do at our company]". Almost 100% of the time the comments contain better information on the topic tackled by the article and with higher information density.

If it's a news article there's always a few comments quoting important parts of the article which is usually enough to understand what's being reported.

The articles that I tend to prefer and to read are the ones that highlight a feature that I wasn't aware of about a language that I'm interested in.