How to jump to direct replies in Discourse

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AI-generated summary

Users are discussing Discourse’s “replies” feature, which allows jumping to direct replies without full threading. westes initially wondered if threading was newly added, but ToddZ clarified it’s a long-standing sitewide feature, not user-specific. westes expressed confusion over duplicated posts in both threaded and linear views, preferring user-controlled views. itsbhanusharma and ToddZ confirmed the setting is admin-controlled via Admin > All Settings, not user preferences. ToddZ also noted he modified button labels to encourage better reply practices. putty shared screenshots illustrating the “replies” dropdown, which westes confirmed was the feature in question, reiterating his preference for user-controllable views with a forum default.

1

Is it my imagination, or did Discourse add threading to discussions? I am new here but don’t remember seeing an expandable “replies” section previously. Is there a thread where this is announced/discussed?

2

There are some settings around this. AFAIK it’s been a feature for a long time, but since it doesn’t appear constantly you just might not have come across it.

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(I find it’s a nice way to enable jumping to direct replies without the downsides of confusing threading.)

3

Where do I find those settings? I want to Preferences | Interface but it was not there.

The one part of threading as implemented that I did not like was duplicating the same post both as an indented reply and again in the linear flow. That ended up getting me lost a few times. My mind wants to anchor to either threaded or linear, but doing both in an overlapping fashion creates confusion (for me).

4

As an admin, go to admin > all settings

Then search for the relevant setting name

5

As Bhanu notes, it’s a sitewide setting, not a user preference.

I don’t find it distracting with the habits I’ve developed. When reading for information I generally ignore the Replies dropdowns on first pass, at least. People use the reply-to-topic button enough that replies-to-replies aren’t always “threaded” anyway.

(I’ve altered the button labels in hopes of encouraging better practices.)

6

Are you referring to the “replies” button if there are replies linked?

CleanShot 2026-01-05 at 10.58.20
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Which unfurls to this:

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7

Yes, and I understand now that this is a forum-wide feature not an individual user preference.

I think the feature would be better done as a view that is controlled by each user, with a forum-wide default setting.