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I’ve long felt that recursive/threaded replies were the death of intelligent online discourse. It’s just endless debate club: everyone proselytizing stodgy talk

I’ve long felt that recursive/threaded replies were the death of intelligent online discourse. It’s just endless debate club: everyone proselytizing stodgy talking points from their individual soapboxes without any genuine back-and-forth happening. If someone loses an argument, they usually just disappear instead of facing the music. No accountability, no reflection, no real sense of community. Quite good at being addictive, though.

pfdietz 2y ago
It goes all the way back to Usenet, if not earlier. When did Usenet really fail? I left by 2007 but it was in bad shape before that.
- chgs 2y ago
  Spam killed it
milesrout 2y ago
I agree. It also means you likely need some way of sorting replies. And that means upvoting, which is a horrid system.
- noduerme 2y ago
  Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other ones.
  - archagon 2y ago
    In my experience, well-moderated forums like Metafilter tend to have much more intelligent discussions than anything you’d find on HN or Reddit.
noduerme 2y ago
On the other hand, threading makes it possible for one group of people to spin off into a subtopic like discussing the relative merits of threaded vs linear boards, in the same general post about what Zuck said, without annoyingly hijacking the main topic. On HN I often find it useful to collapase the child responses and just read the top level, until something like this pulls me into a rabbit hole.
- butlike 2y ago
  The annoying hijacking of a thread was a visible faux pas and helped keep the order of the message board with downward social pressure as opposed to an unbreakable rule (like forcing threaded boards). Meritocracy vs. benevolent dictatorship
- archagon 2y ago
  Threading isn’t an intrinsic sin, I think — sorting by upvotes is. The Discourse forum software allows sub-threads while still preserving a linear conversation style. You could also empower mods to spin off discussions into their own, separate threads. Points is what turns it into an inherent pissing match.

pfdietz 2y ago

It goes all the way back to Usenet, if not earlier. When did Usenet really fail? I left by 2007 but it was in bad shape before that.

chgs 2y ago
Spam killed it

milesrout 2y ago

I agree. It also means you likely need some way of sorting replies. And that means upvoting, which is a horrid system.

noduerme 2y ago
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other ones.
- archagon 2y ago
  In my experience, well-moderated forums like Metafilter tend to have much more intelligent discussions than anything you’d find on HN or Reddit.

noduerme 2y ago

On the other hand, threading makes it possible for one group of people to spin off into a subtopic like discussing the relative merits of threaded vs linear boards, in the same general post about what Zuck said, without annoyingly hijacking the main topic. On HN I often find it useful to collapase the child responses and just read the top level, until something like this pulls me into a rabbit hole.

butlike 2y ago
The annoying hijacking of a thread was a visible faux pas and helped keep the order of the message board with downward social pressure as opposed to an unbreakable rule (like forcing threaded boards). Meritocracy vs. benevolent dictatorship
archagon 2y ago
Threading isn’t an intrinsic sin, I think — sorting by upvotes is. The Discourse forum software allows sub-threads while still preserving a linear conversation style. You could also empower mods to spin off discussions into their own, separate threads. Points is what turns it into an inherent pissing match.