Ask HN: Why Does Most Forum Software Have Flat Commenting? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why Does Most Forum Software Have Flat Commenting?

6 pointscconcepts10 comments

It seems like a lot of forum platforms make their commenting flat making it really hard to discern what is going on.

Why aren't there more packages where the comments/replies stagger like Reddit or HN?

I like flat comments that are ordered by date in a forum. Nothing surpasses a vBulletin-style board in my opinion.

Forums are for a different style of discussion than what is done here on HN. I'm thinking of tech support or more general questions and answers where when a question has been answered the thread is over and it fall.

Yeah the stagger comments kind of bother me personally and make it hard for me to follow. I like flat comments. But I think that is because that is what I am used to on the forums I frequent.

Ok, personally I really like the conversations that staggered comments allow - one group of people can go off on their own little tangent while the rest of the users attend thier own conversations within the topic thread without having to randomly create new conversations

I definitely see the benefit, because I can ignore all other posts. But when the topic or thread gets big, it just gets overwhelming for me. But I guess that can be the case either way.

Flat commenting structure allows you to reply to multiple comments at once. A flat structure also allows you to easily see the most recent posts.

Perhaps mailing lists are better overall, as the client software can sort messages hierarchically or chronologically.

Jeff Atwood has two posts on the topic that support flat comments. Personally I prefer threaded.

http://blog.codinghorror.com/discussions-flat-or-threaded/

http://blog.codinghorror.com/web-discussions-flat-by-design/

4chan threads have a nice linear system where people refer back to previous posts in the thread without duplicating them over and over (as typically happens with BBcode style quoting). This works especially well with mouse-hover viewports to the backreferences.

I like hierarchical if I can collapse threads I’m not interested in and comment volume is high. I’ve always wished HN would let me do that. Staggered comments can get difficult to follow if there are many levels of indentation.

With flat, you can always quote someone’s post to make it clear what you are referring to and the time linearity can be compelling, especially if you want to go back and read comments that have arrived since your last visit.

Three theories:

1. Flat-commenting is easier to design, program, and moderate.

2. Assuming popularity is a power-distribution, the vast majority of all "comment sections" contain so few comments that there's no benefit to threading. Crowded places that need branching threads are less-common.

3. Sometimes it serves a design goal, like in ticketing systems: You want to force all participants to be in a single conversation with a shared chronology.

Other than the fact that flat comments are easier to scroll through (for most i guess), I think flat comments allow you to comment overall in the forum which could mean your response can be applied to One or more posts at the same time. Usually a forum is meant for that. If you focus too much on one-on-one conversation, then may be staggered comments make sense.

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