25 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 61st comment:
Votes: 0
Conner said:
Hmm, I know, because we're not the ones who raised the argument that things should be changed to threaded, you are, therefore the burden of proof to substantiate your arguments lies with you rather than us. Welcome to the rules of debate. *shrug*

Why, exactly, do you have to turn this into a hostile and unpleasant argument? All I asked you for were reasons why you think flat view is superior…
25 Mar, 2008, Guest wrote in the 62nd comment:
Votes: 0
DavidHaley said:
Yes, indeed, TMC's system was bad, therefore EVERY SINGLE OTHER system is bad too.


It's an example. I deal in reality, not the land of theory and conjecture. As Conner put it, the burden is in fact on you to demonstrate that a threaded format is in fact superior. I point to TMC and Mudmagic as examples of why the threaded system is an inferior joke.

DavidHaley said:
Why, exactly, do you have to turn this into a hostile and unpleasant argument? All I asked you for were reasons why you think flat view is superior…


I think you got the ball rolling on the hostile response with your sarcastic reply to my example. You got back what you gave. Remember when we were talking about cultural stuff? :)
25 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 63rd comment:
Votes: 0
I do not think my response was hostile and apologize if you felt that way. I was trying to point out in as friendly a way as possible that pointing out TMC's flaws is a pretty silly criticism of the concept in general. I see that it is pointless to pursue this thread further as you both seem to have gotten upset about it and the suggestion is not worth that. I have said what I will say, and have presented my thoughts; there is no point in belaboring the point further especially given the turn things are taking.
26 Mar, 2008, Darwin wrote in the 64th comment:
Votes: 0
Threaded vs. Flat view.
I can definitely see, in theory, how a threaded view could have its benefits. However, I dislike them because of the way they usually look:
  • topic title
    • re: topic title
      • re: re: topic title
    • re: topic title
    • some other topic
      • re: some other topic

It leads to a big mess of jumbled links to posts, and if there are enough replies it spans the page vertically or wraps around in the text area it is displayed in.

The flat view keeps everything in order, whether it is related to the original topic or not. Off-topic posts could be split off or moved by admins to keep the thread on-topic, but it's already been said that this kind of action won't happen often here.

It doesn't matter which view is chosen/available at the end of the day. Every thread will eventually turn off-topic, a debate will start (if it hadn't started with the original topic) and flaming will begin. The thread will finally die when everyone has run out of ways to say "Why won't you see things my way?"
26 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 65th comment:
Votes: 0
You're right that most thread views are usually poorly implemented. That can be solved with a little ingenuity however. But perhaps it is more important that you are also probably right in your last point.
26 Mar, 2008, Asylumius wrote in the 66th comment:
Votes: 0
For what it's worth, the point of the topic wasn't to empirically prove one style is "better" but more to weigh interest in an alternative layout.

Obviously, no matter how you choose to display the data, without moderation and some basic "forum etiquette", the same problems will persist. In my ever so humble opinion, I think a threaded view could, if implemented and used correctly, would address some of these problems better than a flat view.

It would be nice to see people (kindly) discuss their ideas versus trying to explain to everyone else why they are completely wrong -or- why since they didn't "start it" they don't have to prove anything. This topic is more philosophy than science; nobody can prove they are wrong or right.

PS: If you don't want to burn my house down and piss on my grave, you're not taking this personally enough. By tricking you into clicking a click containing my opinion I have obviously dissed your entire family and engaged us both in a penis size competition. You're going to defend your forum "rep" right? Punish me.
26 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 67th comment:
Votes: 0
I would be very happy to see arguments in favor of the flat view concept in general (beyond any one example). That was sort of the point of this thread, after all: discussing the two systems, giving the pros and cons of each. But perhaps it would be better to simply drop it for now, given that it seems to be going nowhere.
26 Mar, 2008, Brinson wrote in the 68th comment:
Votes: 0
Threaded forums seem pointless to me. I like my forums flat so I always know who responded last. It makes it more like a real conversation. Threading just gets confusing I think.
26 Mar, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 69th comment:
Votes: 0
I think that you are right for relatively short threads, or for threads with a small number of participants, or, to some extent, slowly evolving threads. But what about threads in which there are several (on-topic) conversations going on at once? (Those are the threads that prompted this discussion, after all.) That is where the flat view makes it very hard to follow what is going on and filter out the sub-threads you're not interested in.
26 Mar, 2008, Asylumius wrote in the 70th comment:
Votes: 0
I remember coming back from a weekend away from the computer to find some thread (maybe a admin hat one, I forget, but it was one of the "big" ones) and had to spend upwards of an hour reading it, going back and forth, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, who was referring to who in their rants, etc.

That's one example where I think, assuming people used it right, a threaded layout might have helped.

Having a (relatively) short sub-thread on "Asylumius said xxxxxx and that's bull$sh1t!!!?!?!/1" vs. people randomly quoting (sometimes out of context) and referencing things 5 pages old might be better.

That said, I agree with Brinson that *IF* the topic stays on point and doesn't turn into some huge argumentative jumble, I would prefer the flat layout as well.
26 Mar, 2008, quixadhal wrote in the 71st comment:
Votes: 0
Just my own personal opinion here. I find threaded forums are helpful in environments where you want threads to stay on topic, and where they tend to get rather technical. In that enviornment, being able to follow the chain of reasoning is more important than anything else. In more social forums, or forums where ideas get tossed around frequently, the flat model is more friendly and acts more like a discussion.

While nobody *wants* their thread to wander off topic, the flat format is more forgiving of this, as you know replies further down are always in chronological order. It doesn't take long for a threaded system to devolve if people wander even a little bit away from the thread, and then you end up with a node of a thousand children (often the top node, if the topic isn't very focused to begin with), each of which has one or two replies. Navigating that is a pain.

If I were to write my own forums software, I'd be tempted to have it use the flat model unless a topic got more than N posts, at which point it would switch to threaded view unless the user preferences said "I hate threads". Not sure what a good number for N would be, but my instinct says > 30, and probably > 50.
60.0/71