I know messing with the post stream is bad bad bad, but like you I came to the conclusion that we just need to…
- hide replies from the main stream, just like we do with filters that show only posts from one author, or topic summaries;
- show the “X Replies” tab expanded by default.
Probably the biggest challenge would be what to do upon posting, since Discourse will always show your reply in the main stream. To solve this we’d have to…
- Force-enable the
Don't jump to my post after I reply
user setting on Q&A/introduction topics - Live update the “X Replies” tab. We do increment the X by 1 upon posting, but the most recent nested reply will not show up until you refresh and expand the tab again.
@joebuhlig expressed interest in working on such a plugin, so if someone’s able to fund this work (unfortunately it’s not currently the type of work Discourse.org can fund) then go for it!