Which is why I click through to the HN comments before the article about 9/10 times. Usually more interesting and informative than the article anyway.

Ha! Same here. This is exactly why I wish more (overtly) political stories weren't flagged so quickly as of late... 9/10 the HN commentary really is superior.

>Which is why I click through to the HN comments before the article about 9/10 times.

If you determined whether an article was clickbait or not based on HN comments, you wouldn't read anything, ever.

I'm skeptical that this community has a handle on what "click-bait" is. Anything that isn't written in the precise style the commentor enjoys, or isn't as information dense as a commentor would like seems to gain the label.

I view your thought process as how 'group think' and 'reddit culture' starts to permeate HN

I think that would be 'instead' rather than 'before'.