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

[rokejulianlockhart (Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell)]

@piffy,

@piffy

If you’re going to link simple concepts from wikipedia, you should at least read the page yourself because it explains why a logical extreme is a useful rhetorical device.

It’s not a useful logical device, hence the reference to the explanation. Also, I subsequently explained why it wasn’t useful, so why are you asking for an explanation?

@piffy

The point is that a good discussion will require some amount of cognitive load so it shouldn’t be the primary variable to optimize.

Had you clarified that previously, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. I agree, although since nobody purported otherwise, I still don’t understand the relevance.

@piffy

The primary question is whether or not better discussions emerge from a flat format or a threaded one. I don’t know the answer but my impression is that because a threaded discussion typically gives you a narrow and engineered view of a topic and is hard to revisit, that overall the quality of the discussion is affected.

I don’t believe that that is the primary issue to be resolved, because it doesn’t matter if the user can choose whether to view the thread flat or threaded - each user chooses based upon their personal preference. All responses are threaded beneath the GUI (that’s why there’s a “Reply” feature on responses as well as an otherwise duplicate blue one at the bottom of the thread) so it’s merely a matter of exposing this to the user.

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@Sailsman63,

@Sailsman63

It’s about the fact that one of those replies is on page 2 of an 8 page discussion.

What 8-page discussion do you refer to? If you’re describing a hypothetical threaded and paged discussion, the way to remediate that problem is by merely not paging the thread.

@Sailsman63

It’s not about the indentation.

What’s not about indentation?