Not sure it should be all children. But maybe 2 deep or something. For instance your comment would be unseen if it was collapsed at the top level, but yours is

Not sure it should be all children. But maybe 2 deep or something. For instance your comment would be unseen if it was collapsed at the top level, but yours is what sparked my reply. It does get weird though, because then people would just be incentivised to reply at the top level. And end up a longer thread there. I guess if its not completely collapsed there is always going to be some attempt to reply in the right place because you will get more views there instead of a top level comment. Also curious about being able to make a web extension that collapses at a certain configurable level. Or even reordering. Not that it helps most users. But would be interesting.