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

feature
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Perhaps less-than-optimally worded. Replace with “Substantially long” - This very discussion thread would qualify.

In a threaded view you get:

  • Post
    • Reply
    • Reply
      • Sub-Reply
      • Sub-Reply
        • Riposte
      • Sub-Reply
    • Reply
      • Sub-Reply

If someone later adds a reply to an early comment in the thread, we get:

  • Post
    • Reply
      • New Sub-Reply
    • Reply
      • Sub-Reply
      • Sub-Reply
        • Riposte
      • Sub-Reply
    • Reply
      • Sub-Reply

How am I supposed to find that new post if I have to scroll up from the bottom of a 60 comment discussion?

I was responding to your comment that you didn’t understand how indentation would make things more difficult. Indentation is a necessary affordance to make a threaded ordering somewhat functional. The issue, at least for me, is the ordering in the first place.

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