Me three. I know super busy sites have issues with threads being impossible to follow because they are so busy with posts – WoW forums, for example, where a thread can spawn dozens of posts in a single hour and hundreds in a single day – but those sites are rare. Most sites are manageable.
Uh, yeah, SE is literally the opposite of discussion – we actively suppress and discourage it. Only the absolute minimum amount of discussion is tolerated, only what is necessary to get good answers and good questions.
You know how you can jump back from a quote to see the original post in context? It might be nice to be able to jump from that post to all direct replies.
So a “flat for display, with optional threaded navigation model” would be my ideal. The threaded navigation would be completely optional and unobtrusive.
Are you still trying to implement this with node.js?
Threaded is really awful for anyone (or at least me) who wants to read entire threads. It requires a lot more effort to scan down comment trees to see if there are any new posts at the end of each, rather than just clicking on the last page of the thread and backing up until you find comments you recognize.
Also, I agree with the idea that subforums and topics are a basic form of threading that works. Basically, once you’ve drilled down a couple levels of categorization, I think you’re better served with flat discussions.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. It was very useful, though I would have liked to hear some more spirited defense of threading, to get the other side.
I posted here:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/12/web-discussions-flat-by-design.html