# Threaded discussion is ultimately too complex to survive on the public Internet?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/threaded-discussion-is-ultimately-too-complex-to-survive-on-the-public-internet/63172
**Category:** UX
**Created:** [2017年五月23日 02:43 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/threaded-discussion-is-ultimately-too-complex-to-survive-on-the-public-internet/63172 "2017-05-23T02:43:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![John\_Engleman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/john_engleman/32/120991_2.png) [@John\_Engleman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/John_Engleman)
#### Post date: [2017年五月23日 02:43 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/threaded-discussion-is-ultimately-too-complex-to-survive-on-the-public-internet/63172/1 "2017-05-23T02:43:49Z")

</div>

In 2012, Jeff’ wrote that he thought [“threaded discussion is ultimately too complex to survive on the public Internet.”](https://blog.codinghorror.com/web-discussions-flat-by-design/)

Since it’s been nearly another 6 years, I was wondering if he still saw flat threads as the wave of the future, considering threaded conversations continue to be used by the largest and fastest growing social sites(Facebook, Imgur, Reddit)?

Given the apparent acceptance, perhaps even preference, of threaded design by these hundreds of millions of users, would he now be willing to consider incorporating threaded design into Discourse?

It seems that at the very least, this makes pragmatic business sense, since threaded conversations are now what the majority of people are used to using.

---

_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/threaded-discussion-is-ultimately-too-complex-to-survive-on-the-public-internet/63172)._