I make it a point not to comment unless I’ve at least skimmed the article. Even if my comment, or more often, the comment I’m replying to, has little to do with the OP. However, I do often use the comment section as a heuristic for whether an article is “worth” my time.

Unrelated to your question: IMO _folks_ makes a friendly, genderless, drop-in replacement for _guys_ in most cases when addressing mixed (or potentially mixed) audiences. Granted, it can come off a little, well, “folksy” but I’d rather skew folksy than potentially offensive/exclusive.