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> getting people to use even the first layer of threads is very difficult, especially non-technical people I've found that as well. I wonder why that is--many

> getting people to use even the first layer of threads is very difficult, especially non-technical people I've found that as well. I wonder why that is--many times I've been working with someone who is extremely intelligent and methodical as an individual, but structured communication totally breaks down as soon threads enter the picture. Interestingly, this sometimes even happens verbally (at work, when doing tech support on either side of the phone, at feedback discussions with artists/writers, when talking with friends): some folks really do not like "zeroing in" on specific sub-discussion items, talking them out, then moving on or going back to the bigger picture. Instead, they like to jump around or "chroot" the discussion to whatever the most recent topic of interest is. Anecdotally, it's very much a "two kinds of people" situation, but I don't know what the common factor is (and again, I don't think this is a skill/bad-faith issue; these are smart and reasonable people. They just ... don't think in trees or stacks).

James_K 2y ago
For the verbal phenomenon, I think that is just a symptom of human brain function. Only a small amount of processing is conscious verbalisation, so you will need to talk about new things while your subconscious processes other ones. As for online, I think the idea of threads is obviously antithetical to the concept of linear discussion. When you organise things as a tree, you present the many branches as though each is a valid target for a new entry. If you want things to be discussed linearly, you must present that discussion linearly. This linear discussion is feasible only in text, as you have time to think something over before verbalising it.
SoftTalker 2y ago
Because nested threads get so deep into the weeds that the eyes start to glaze over. I liked the old Joel on Software boards. No threads, messages posted sequentially as they are created. If you want to quote, do it manually. I feel like discussion stayed on topic or at least evolved sensibly, there were no deep tangents on pedantic matters that pushed the rest of the messages off the bottom of the page. Edit: here's a post where Joel talks about the design of his forums. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/03/building-communities-with-software/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/03/building-communiti... I think there's a lot of good sense in there, if you are too young to remember, the JoS forums were the "Hacker News" of their time, a place where programmers and other people involved in software businesses had online discussions about a number of interesting things. Those forums were even simpler than HN is -- no threads, no replies to individual posts. You could read comments in linear order, and post your comment after scrolling to the bottom. That's it.
- amadeuspagel 2y ago
  Interesting essay, but there must be a limit to how these ideas scale, otherwise StackOverflow wouldn't be such a mess.
OJFord 2y ago
Because, in Slack for example, the post new top-level message box is right there! The most prominent affordable for replying results in it appearing at the top-level. If the 'Message #whatever' input was hidden behind '+ New post' then there would be a much clearer push into threads. In my experience (and my own doing) threads are more likely to be used if there's other conversation happening too, or another unrelated message has already followed; otherwise if it's quiet people are quite likely to reply at top-level and I don't think anyone can blame them. (I don't even really have a problem with it personally, as long as someone doesn't then reply in thread ignoring the top-level discussion about it, which does confuse things.)

James_K 2y ago

For the verbal phenomenon, I think that is just a symptom of human brain function. Only a small amount of processing is conscious verbalisation, so you will need to talk about new things while your subconscious processes other ones. As for online, I think the idea of threads is obviously antithetical to the concept of linear discussion. When you organise things as a tree, you present the many branches as though each is a valid target for a new entry. If you want things to be discussed linearly, you must present that discussion linearly. This linear discussion is feasible only in text, as you have time to think something over before verbalising it.

SoftTalker 2y ago

Because nested threads get so deep into the weeds that the eyes start to glaze over. I liked the old Joel on Software boards. No threads, messages posted sequentially as they are created. If you want to quote, do it manually. I feel like discussion stayed on topic or at least evolved sensibly, there were no deep tangents on pedantic matters that pushed the rest of the messages off the bottom of the page. Edit: here's a post where Joel talks about the design of his forums. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/03/building-communities-with-software/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/03/building-communiti... I think there's a lot of good sense in there, if you are too young to remember, the JoS forums were the "Hacker News" of their time, a place where programmers and other people involved in software businesses had online discussions about a number of interesting things. Those forums were even simpler than HN is -- no threads, no replies to individual posts. You could read comments in linear order, and post your comment after scrolling to the bottom. That's it.

amadeuspagel 2y ago
Interesting essay, but there must be a limit to how these ideas scale, otherwise StackOverflow wouldn't be such a mess.

OJFord 2y ago

Because, in Slack for example, the post new top-level message box is right there! The most prominent affordable for replying results in it appearing at the top-level. If the 'Message #whatever' input was hidden behind '+ New post' then there would be a much clearer push into threads. In my experience (and my own doing) threads are more likely to be used if there's other conversation happening too, or another unrelated message has already followed; otherwise if it's quiet people are quite likely to reply at top-level and I don't think anyone can blame them. (I don't even really have a problem with it personally, as long as someone doesn't then reply in thread ignoring the top-level discussion about it, which does confuse things.)