I disagree that they're necessarily worse for participating. The issues of following a popular forum thread would still make it obnoxious to participate in the

I disagree that they're necessarily worse for participating. The issues of following a popular forum thread would still make it obnoxious to participate in the conversation. And in a forum, when two people get into unproductive one-on-ones it tends to stifle the entire conversation, because it's put right inline with all other posts. The problem with massive threads, I feel like, still exists with forums, but the opposite. It's usually folly to comment on a popular thread early on a traditional forum, as your comment will just be swept up with all the other excited comments. I think the answer to both is to use them for smaller communities, which is why I think reddit is best for hobby communities and whatnot.