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

Feature
61

This is partly what I like. In the front of written material there are the outlines:

  • topic
    • header
      • subitem
    • header
      • subitem
    • header
      • subitem

it’s organized. you can get an overall view and find what you’re looking for easily.

to me, the existing flaws with threaded discussion are usability / ux issues.

  • reloading the page
  • losing your place
  • finding or being notified of new comments
  • deep threads (less space to read)

these aren’t difficult to fix:

  • don’t reload, open up a dialog window or fetch the data
  • don’t reload and you don’t lose your place
  • load new comments dynamically or use visual indicators (bold rows)
  • decrease indent as you increase in depth, or set max depths

indeed. it wouldn’t be a replacement to already great community experience but a complementary addition that users can switch between (or enabled optionally)

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