I think that's a good thing, for larger communities. Threads become unreadable once they're over a certain size, at least with linear comments. With nested comments, you can digest part of a topic and still participate.
Also, I think the "fragmented community" also has its advantages. The community can different aspects of the article at the same time, so parts don't get ignored. While one person may want to mention they love the design on the site, another has a minor nitpick, and a third guy has a comment on similar articles, they can all say their piece without dragging the entire discussion off topic.
However, I do agree with what you said about everyone being heard and the benefit of a cohesive discussion. The recent topic this really comes to mind for is the one about "How to stop HN's decline". There were a number of good ideas, but they were also repeated numerously, and the same counter points were made. If there was a single linear thread for that topic, while the size would be unwieldy, I think the same points would have been made less.
Perhaps the question then becomes: how do we make a large community function like a small one?
One idea: for every new "comment" on a story (that isn't a response) create a new instance of the story on the news feed. Example: I comment on this story, and you reply.
[Newer online forums are worse at conversation]
"I grew up on message boards. In fact, my ..."
by keiferski | 2 comments
Rinse/repeat for every new comment on the story. It would lead to more instances of the same story on the news feed, but would also lead to more in-depth comments. Of course, it would be very easy to organize (and hide) long lists of comments.
Comments
I think that's a good thing, for larger communities. Threads become unreadable once they're over a certain size, at least with linear comments. With nested comments, you can digest part of a topic and still participate.
Also, I think the "fragmented community" also has its advantages. The community can different aspects of the article at the same time, so parts don't get ignored. While one person may want to mention they love the design on the site, another has a minor nitpick, and a third guy has a comment on similar articles, they can all say their piece without dragging the entire discussion off topic.
However, I do agree with what you said about everyone being heard and the benefit of a cohesive discussion. The recent topic this really comes to mind for is the one about "How to stop HN's decline". There were a number of good ideas, but they were also repeated numerously, and the same counter points were made. If there was a single linear thread for that topic, while the size would be unwieldy, I think the same points would have been made less.
Perhaps the question then becomes: how do we make a large community function like a small one?
One idea: for every new "comment" on a story (that isn't a response) create a new instance of the story on the news feed. Example: I comment on this story, and you reply.
Rinse/repeat for every new comment on the story. It would lead to more instances of the same story on the news feed, but would also lead to more in-depth comments. Of course, it would be very easy to organize (and hide) long lists of comments.