I much prefer reddit's forum structure, should other forums copy it?

[simpsonfan409]

For the first time in years I'm really browsing through a forum other than reddit. I've used LLT forums every now and then for tech questions, but i didn't really browse it. 

I find that sorting posts in a timeline, rather than grouping them by replies and upvotes is a lot less interesting and i just end up thinking "this thread has too many replies, moving on", because i can't be bothered to read through 60 replies of people misunderstanding each other or ranting about nonsense till i get to the good replies. 

Anyway, is this something you'd want to see other forums copy, or do you think a traditional timeline is better? 

I get that the opinions here may be biased, since we are on a traditional forum, but I'm still curious. 

[venomtail]

it's a scale thing.

 

If every forum post had hundred of replies, yea, traditional forum structure like here wouldn't be scalable. That's why big social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and other have modern grouped replies.

 

LTT forum isn't that big.

Until the traditional structure becomes the bottleneck of and you can no longer follow a conversation, when a thread can't be managed, then it'll need updating. Until then, don't fix what isn't broken.

[porina]

I royally hate the Reddit structure. It makes no sense to me. Can't find anything of worth on the site. It's basically like the -chans but less entertaining. They can keep it far away from here.

 

Strict time order works best for me. The only minor change that sites like here could use is possibly stricter moderation to keep a thread on topic, and starting another thread is more relevant if the topic drifts.

[Needfuldoer]

Yuck. The only thing worse than branching reply trees is slogging through mailing lists.

[starsmine]

I like reddits format, but it has significant issues (threads having to repeat themselves because the information in one thread is required for the information in a different one)
With that said, large bonus is that It allows what is normally more valid (remember always check) information to bubble up to the top. 

It works for reddit, but it does not work for a forum. 

I would not say I prefer one or the other. 

[Poinkachu]

29 minutes ago, simpsonfan409 said:

For the first time in years I'm really browsing through a forum other than reddit. I've used LLT forums every now and then for tech questions, but i didn't really browse it. 

I find that sorting posts in a timeline, rather than grouping them by replies and upvotes is a lot less interesting and i just end up thinking "this thread has too many replies, moving on", because i can't be bothered to read through 60 replies of people misunderstanding each other or ranting about nonsense till i get to the good replies. 

Anyway, is this something you'd want to see other forums copy, or do you think a traditional timeline is better? 

I get that the opinions here may be biased, since we are on a traditional forum, but I'm still curious. 

Most of the time I don't have to, I just need to see the last 2-3 pages.

If it's people bickering about something, then I most of the time don't care enough to reply.
If it's something I care enough to contribute but feel that there's missing context I need, then I just keep clicking :

 

[freeagent]

I don’t Reddit. I hate their structure.

[Eigenvektor]

Whenever I search something on Google, Reddit results are a "last resort" kind of thing for me, especially on mobile.

 

I constantly find myself clicking "load more replies" and backtracking instead of just reading a thread top to bottom, always wondering if I've missed something important.

[Avocado Diaboli]

Let's see. On the one hand, we have traditional forums, where someone creates a topic and people linearly discuss said topic. Newcomers easily have the ability to chronologically follow the development of the discussion and refer to all information sequentially that (ideally) all participants are aware of.

 

On the other hand we have Reddit, where the first 10 or so replies to a given topic spawn their own dedicated discussions about the same topic and where participants of one thread are completely oblivious to the information present in any of the other threads, even though at their core, the discussions are still related to the original post.

Yeah, I think I'll stick with coherent discussions that are easy to navigate over a fractal nightmare of redundant information that often turns out to be contradictory but never gets resolved because of crown shyness.

[Mark Kaine]

reddit isn't a classic forum, because it doesn't have the same structure... its more like discord which isnt a "forum" either, its just some weird place to post mostly silly memes and a "team speak clone" on top... but discord does have a lot more usability imho, its more decentralized and has better more modern options. 

[LogicalDrm]

Apart from upvotes, I could agree. But when mob can decide whether something is good or not, regardless of whether content actually is good or not, that doesn't sound like good overall results.

 

I say apart since this forum started with vBulletin 5. I did like the sub discussions for each post. Those allowed to have more off-topic discussion which currently is seen as derail that can break whole other discussion.

[Erioch]

No.

[ToboRobot]

Long discussions benefit greatly from threading.
 

[dilpickle]

No. Sites like Reddit are more about popularity than usefulness. The top comments are always jokes and it ends up being a feedback loop where the most upvoted comments keep getting upvoted.

 

Forums have been around long before social media and there is no reason to change.

[simpsonfan409]

18 hours ago, dilpickle said:

No. Sites like Reddit are more about popularity than usefulness. The top comments are always jokes and it ends up being a feedback loop where the most upvoted comments keep getting upvoted.

 

Forums have been around long before social media and there is no reason to change.

Have you never googled something and the only results for several pages were shitty articles that waste your time, but the moment you put reddit at the end of your search query you actually got what you were looking for? 9/10 times when i get a forum as a result it's a 1 reply thread telling OP to just use google, or a redirect to an old thread with outdated/broken links. 

[Erioch]

1 hour ago, simpsonfan409 said:

Have you never googled something and the only results for several pages were shitty articles that waste your time, but the moment you put reddit at the end of your search query you actually got what you were looking for? 9/10 times when i get a forum as a result it's a 1 reply thread telling OP to just use google, or a redirect to an old thread with outdated/broken links. 

To be fair, there are plenty of Reddit results that are shitty and waste your time.  That and the horrible navigation once you get there doesn't help.

[NinJake]

Both are fine. But if I want to view a forum in the structure of reddit, I'll load reddit.

 

I'm all for keeping traditional forums alive.

[Mihle]

Reddit is good for sharing interesting articles or photos or whatever with each other for fun, but for anything that benefits with actual discussion, or asking for other peoples opinions or asking for help, its super terrible.

 

For asking questions in some form, being it help or opinions from others about something, Reddit is terrible, especially in subreddits that have any kind of popularity. Reason is that once a topic is posted, unless it gets lots up upvotes it will basically be gone after few hours or a day depending on subreddits size because it gets to far down, even if people continue to have comment back and fourth. To get any use of it you short of have to post and be available the next few hours, and for the right person to see it you might even have to delete and repost sometimes after a few days on different time.

 

Traditional forum is way better in that way, as topics stay on first page as long as there is new comments on it, they dont die because they are old but rather they die because few comments, when the commenting is done if you will. Reddit prioritizes things that is just new way to much.

 

Those reasons makes it also poor for discussions, but also ranking of comments inside a thread, if you are a few hours late, noone will see your comment basically, while in a traditional forum people are probably more likely to see whats going on in the last few pages than changing sorting to new in Reddit.

 

Reddit have a benefit when it comes to sharing funny things or links and stuff tho, where the use is more of what is funnest or interesting and hiding things that arent funny or whatever tho.

[thrasher_565]

i can just see it. some one make a thread "whats the best fan" the first reply noctua then just up votes. making any talks about other fans not talked about and when they do just get down voted.

[DeerDK]

I would prefer Disqus over reddit. It's more a traditional thread, but answers to a specific post are a new subthread that can be collapsed, but all still on the same page 

[Arika]

Both have their uses. I prefer traditional personally

[Snadzies]

Once a topic/post gets somewhere around 30-50+ replies then I prefer Reddit's grouping style.

I find that style works much better for topics that have a large number of replies.

 

[Satan_Prometheus]

No, the reddit format sucks ass because of the upvote/downvote system.

 

Upvotes/downvotes really hurt discussion because they allow a slight majority to make it seem like they are an overwhelming majority by manipulating the votes to send any dissenting views to the bottom. That's why nearly every sub on reddit ends up becoming an echo chamber for one particular point of view.