While talk.bizarre readers don't often agree on what they like, they show astonishing unanimity when presented with pure crud, and you may find that you can clear out a lot of deadwood by killfiling the dependably uninteresting authors. Followups are not always the root of all evil. I think newbies are well-advised to regard picking through followups to be a task for seasoned readers, a task that they are unlikely to find rewarding until they've already figured out what they like by reading the original articles. Frequently someone will post an article which is intended to be followed up, as long as the followup is creative, innovative, and interesting. The theme thread.
Someone posts an article with an interesting theme, and others run with it.
Not that that is much of a recommendation. Someone posts a mindless piece of pap, but some really creative individual finds inspiration in it and posts a marvel. Often, people just don't find that the muse strikes them out of the blue, but need some kind of prod. This kind of author usually has at least a few spontaneous articles, so you'll probably spot them and add them to your autoselect list. Over The Top with a flame.