A bold statement was made over on FeverBee today: "Reddit is the exception, threaded discussions are awful."
I have mixed feelings on the matter, and want to know: Do you agree?
If I skip out on a discussion for a day or two and revisit to see 9 additional pages of comments, I know that I'll inevitably have to start scanning from the beginning and make a mental note of the timestamps along the way. Sometimes tedious and annoying, other times quite pleasant to note new voices and tangential conversations.
Jeff Atwood made the argument that Web discussions are flat by design, and "this is software Darwinism in action: threaded discussion is ultimately too complex to survive on the public Internet."
Let's explore this further...
1. Do you believe threaded discussions are superior to flat? Cite your favorite examples!
2. Can you name any 10+ year old discussion forums that use threading, which are still active today? (Discounting /reddit and Slashdot.)
3. What about hybrids? If you had to build a new forum, what aspects of flat or threaded discussion would you incorporate, and specifically how?
Replies
i despise creator style with a passion its so anoying not only are the replies on random pages instead of at the end like they should be theres also a limit to how deep replies can go
ie:
reply 1
reply to reply 1
reply to that reply
another reply
but no way to reply to this..at all
so limited
www.dreadlockssite.com uses the reply with quotes option and its smooth makes sence replies are at the end where u expect them
i really hate the way its done here on creators
so frustrating
thnx for letting me vent
been annoying me since the day i joined
Good feedback. I'd be open to experimenting with flat comments in the future -- we'll see what we can do when Creators transitions to Ning 3.0.
Hmmm. "When Creators transitions to Ning 3.0.", eh? Looking forward to it. =)
as far as i know so far t least 3.0 only offers flat
Which will really be annoying when Creators transitions with forums of 30+ pages. lol
no u can reply till you no longer have the optio n to reply so he who replies last wins by default..
the totaly random nature of threadded where the last reply made could be on page 1 3 7 12 66 or 99 is anoying enough..but when your discussion is forced to end by a limmited number of replies or then you have to reply to yourself or start a whole new "thread' by using the top reply box..thats just senceless
it makes discussions disjointed awkward and at times you end up talking to yourself
flat is chronological u can reply to a post on page 1 the replies at the end where u expect it to be and the post your rel]plying to quoted ..so no confusion
and u alwatys know wheee to look for latest posts..right at the end so if u dont reply solely on email notices its so easy
with threaded if u dont have email notification on u will never find the new posts
threaded is deaded if they turn off email notices!
Hadn't thought of this from an email notifications perspective, but I have always found those commentId links to be super helpful.
Never once used them.
Cat vs baby is fierce.
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