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It's useful when a parent comment spawns hundreds of replies and you're not interested in the direction the parent comment has taken the discussion, but want to
by mattmanser 11y ago
It's useful when a parent comment spawns hundreds of replies and you're not interested in the direction the parent comment has taken the discussion, but want to discuss other parts of the article.
It doesn't happen that often, but when it does it's annoying scrolling trying to find the next top level comment.
- nkurz 11y agoIn theory, I wouldn't disagree. But in practice, I've been using an extension that offers this capability for years now, and have never intentionally collapsed a comment thread. The utility depends on your usage pattern, and my point was only that it's not a universal desire. This doesn't mean it shouldn't be added, but for me, it simply adds clutter to a clean interface, with small buttons that I occasionally accidentally click and unclick. Do I take it that you are using an extension that allows this, and find it useful?
- tokenizerrr 11y agoOn the other hand, I use https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc... and collapse comment threads daily. I find it to be very helpful to track of what I've read.
- mattmanser 11y agoI didn't use it much. I haven't installed it on my new machines. I miss it occasionally. We hackers will put up with really shitty UIs though, as virtually every one of our tools attests. It's like code indentation, we've all had to search for the next root node in an editor without highlighting or collapsing.