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I completely disagree. Single threaded conversations are hijacked by the loudest and often most annoying commenters, don't allow interesting diversions, don't a

by aneth4 13y ago

I completely disagree. Single threaded conversations are hijacked by the loudest and often most annoying commenters, don't allow interesting diversions, don't allow recovery from dead end conversations, don't organize information naturally, and are just generally horrible. They quickly follow Godwin's law, and there is very little chance for recovery. A few comments by idiots and the thread is lost. Hacker News without threaded replies would be a disaster. The most interesting discussions are often thread branches, and I'm very thankful much of the uninteresting stuff and endless self-important debate is isolated where it belongs - in a thread. In simple cases, as with a few comments on a photo by someone with 500 friends, threads are overkill and likely to degrade the conversation. On large board with hundreds of commenters, threads are essential. Your points are either wrong or symptoms of bad UIs, not threaded comments. Understood only by programmers? Have you tested that theory? It's wrong. Threads are all over the internet and used competently by all kinds of people. Even my mother understands threads. Hard to follow a thread? I can't even describe how much better threaded comments are than Iroquote, even if horizontal scrolling is required. So yeah, I disagree 100%.

staltz 13y ago
You're free to disagree, as I disagreed with you. A few more defenses to my opinion: single threaded conversations can be saved from annoying idiots through a highlighting feature. I'm talking Slashdot comments (which are threaded but what I refer to is hiding vs highlighting according to karma). Threads are not the only way of filtering relevant content. It takes just one commenter to make a thread inconsistent, and the theory is easily tested: just pick a topic in Reddit and soon you will find one. Also the limit in reply depth causes inconsistencies: once you get to deep into a reply tree, the narrow space left by the indentations eventually forces someone to reply to a higher level in the tree (specially mobile). It's just a technical limitation, not a social theory. If a discussion ends up diverting considerably from the OP, just start a new discussion. That's what Branch.com focused heavily on. They are single threaded, but work slightly like multi-threads. It works nicely. Note also that they have a highlighting feature, and another mechanism to suppress spammers. You have good points defending threads, but I'm not alone against them. I'm sure even Facebook carefully considered threads for their comment system. Many Facebook groups have intense activity (not your normal 30-comment on a friend's photo), I've even witnessed one with over 700 comments. The OP shows us they seem to be experimenting with threads, but they are not going for it 100%. Even Google+ is single-threaded for large discussions. Why?
- aneth4 13y ago
  This thread between us is a PERFECT example of why threads are necessary. We are having a conversation that would not happen if there were no threads, and which I would hesitate to engage in because it would be side-tracking the main point. We'd have all sorts of people telling us to stay on topic. Look how you're responding to individuals and they can see your response. Look how easy it is to follow the discussion. Sorry, but IMO, you are dead wrong on this. And you're worried about "inconsistent threads" from naive users? Imagine what naive users do when there are no threads... Just start a new thread? And lose the audience? Pollute the top-level namespace with tangents? How do you pull people back into the discussion. This is not a solution. Thread depth limit has never been an issue on HN because most discussions die out by that point and people move on to other top level topics. If it were an eternal discussion with endless threads, there are plenty of solutions to the UI issues there, but that would a rare use case where such depth were needed.
  - staltz 13y ago
    If I'm dead wrong, explain me how Branch.com is being successful as a "good web conversations platform" with a single thread layout. Plus, explain me their decision to make Branch "better and simpler" (http://bulletin.branch.com/ http://bulletin.branch.com/) by removing their branch feature (creating new conversations as a reply to a comment). They just abandoned their only threading feature (heck, their company is named BRANCH), to make the experience better. I'd also like to see you explain how Google+ made their Disqus competitor with single threads. Are Branch and Google also dead wrong?
    - aneth4 13y ago
      I forgot, Google+ is killing it and Google always has top notch UI. Actually, G+ is having issues because they are ordering comments to sort out the junk and losing chronology because single threads are horrible. I don't know much about Branch and I haven't seen it used on any major sites. Seems the threaded providers are doing quite well and leading the pack. Nobody complains that Disqus has threads and I see all sorts of ignorant wack jobs successfully using threads in the corners of the Internet. So yeah, maybe Google and Branch are wrong. Not much of a stretch. Sorry if t threatens your startup but best to know you're wrong early.

by aneth4 13y ago

staltz 13y ago

You're free to disagree, as I disagreed with you. A few more defenses to my opinion: single threaded conversations can be saved from annoying idiots through a highlighting feature. I'm talking Slashdot comments (which are threaded but what I refer to is hiding vs highlighting according to karma). Threads are not the only way of filtering relevant content. It takes just one commenter to make a thread inconsistent, and the theory is easily tested: just pick a topic in Reddit and soon you will find one. Also the limit in reply depth causes inconsistencies: once you get to deep into a reply tree, the narrow space left by the indentations eventually forces someone to reply to a higher level in the tree (specially mobile). It's just a technical limitation, not a social theory. If a discussion ends up diverting considerably from the OP, just start a new discussion. That's what Branch.com focused heavily on. They are single threaded, but work slightly like multi-threads. It works nicely. Note also that they have a highlighting feature, and another mechanism to suppress spammers. You have good points defending threads, but I'm not alone against them. I'm sure even Facebook carefully considered threads for their comment system. Many Facebook groups have intense activity (not your normal 30-comment on a friend's photo), I've even witnessed one with over 700 comments. The OP shows us they seem to be experimenting with threads, but they are not going for it 100%. Even Google+ is single-threaded for large discussions. Why?

aneth4 13y ago
This thread between us is a PERFECT example of why threads are necessary. We are having a conversation that would not happen if there were no threads, and which I would hesitate to engage in because it would be side-tracking the main point. We'd have all sorts of people telling us to stay on topic. Look how you're responding to individuals and they can see your response. Look how easy it is to follow the discussion. Sorry, but IMO, you are dead wrong on this. And you're worried about "inconsistent threads" from naive users? Imagine what naive users do when there are no threads... Just start a new thread? And lose the audience? Pollute the top-level namespace with tangents? How do you pull people back into the discussion. This is not a solution. Thread depth limit has never been an issue on HN because most discussions die out by that point and people move on to other top level topics. If it were an eternal discussion with endless threads, there are plenty of solutions to the UI issues there, but that would a rare use case where such depth were needed.
- staltz 13y ago
  If I'm dead wrong, explain me how Branch.com is being successful as a "good web conversations platform" with a single thread layout. Plus, explain me their decision to make Branch "better and simpler" (http://bulletin.branch.com/ http://bulletin.branch.com/) by removing their branch feature (creating new conversations as a reply to a comment). They just abandoned their only threading feature (heck, their company is named BRANCH), to make the experience better. I'd also like to see you explain how Google+ made their Disqus competitor with single threads. Are Branch and Google also dead wrong?
  - aneth4 13y ago
    I forgot, Google+ is killing it and Google always has top notch UI. Actually, G+ is having issues because they are ordering comments to sort out the junk and losing chronology because single threads are horrible. I don't know much about Branch and I haven't seen it used on any major sites. Seems the threaded providers are doing quite well and leading the pack. Nobody complains that Disqus has threads and I see all sorts of ignorant wack jobs successfully using threads in the corners of the Internet. So yeah, maybe Google and Branch are wrong. Not much of a stretch. Sorry if t threatens your startup but best to know you're wrong early.