02-20-2003, 01:31 PM
*hopes he pressed the correct reply button*
I must say I agree with Pete here. Some points of the "confusion" of a thread system was brought forward but I think that would only happen if one take a threaded topic and view it in a inear way, that is, with the posts not in post order but in the order they would apear in athreaded topic. Indeed, that would be horrible since one would have to reread the whole topic to find new messages. That is why threaded topics indent posts and also why one have that nice "tree" at the start (or as here at bottom which is worse) so that one get a nice overview of the topic and can instantly see were new posts have appeared and if they are in a branch one might be interested in.
I personally read only perhaps 1/10 of all threads here. And of those in many I read just a part of the posts, the other are usually of no interest, side discussions going off on topics I don't care about. Threads give me a very convenient way to get an overview of that.
In a linear system on the other hand, I have to go through and look at EVERY single post in a thread I might be interested in even if 90% of them have branched of into a subtopic totally uninteresting. I never know if any of the posts in the 4 following pages (in a big thread) might be in reply to something interesting, for example my own post at the start. The only possible time linear might be good as far as I can tell, is if you are one of those that want to read (and will read) every single post ever posted, then it might possibly be convenient.
The ideal, is of course being able to view the forum in two ways, fully and correctly threaded, and fully and correctly linear. As far as I can tell this forum only have the last possibility, no? And for threads, you can at most get the tree. :(
I must say I agree with Pete here. Some points of the "confusion" of a thread system was brought forward but I think that would only happen if one take a threaded topic and view it in a inear way, that is, with the posts not in post order but in the order they would apear in athreaded topic. Indeed, that would be horrible since one would have to reread the whole topic to find new messages. That is why threaded topics indent posts and also why one have that nice "tree" at the start (or as here at bottom which is worse) so that one get a nice overview of the topic and can instantly see were new posts have appeared and if they are in a branch one might be interested in.
I personally read only perhaps 1/10 of all threads here. And of those in many I read just a part of the posts, the other are usually of no interest, side discussions going off on topics I don't care about. Threads give me a very convenient way to get an overview of that.
In a linear system on the other hand, I have to go through and look at EVERY single post in a thread I might be interested in even if 90% of them have branched of into a subtopic totally uninteresting. I never know if any of the posts in the 4 following pages (in a big thread) might be in reply to something interesting, for example my own post at the start. The only possible time linear might be good as far as I can tell, is if you are one of those that want to read (and will read) every single post ever posted, then it might possibly be convenient.
The ideal, is of course being able to view the forum in two ways, fully and correctly threaded, and fully and correctly linear. As far as I can tell this forum only have the last possibility, no? And for threads, you can at most get the tree. :(
There are three types of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can't.