There are a few problems with this approach IMHO: - If the discussion is sorted by something else than the counter, karma for instance, it isn't quite as easy.

There are a few problems with this approach IMHO: - If the discussion is sorted by something else than the counter, karma for instance, it isn't quite as easy. - When you're moving posts you need to look at all the children and make changes ccordingly. This might not be a huge problem in itself, but there are problematic edge cases. What if someone makes a rely to a thread that has just been moved for instance? It would get archived wrong. - If you want to encapsulate a post and it's children (if for instance you want to be able to hide children w. javascript) you need to write out the HTML using a recursive algorithm. Besides, it doesn't seem like a very elegant solution ;-)