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0 pointsazernik10y ago0 comments

Both Facebook and YouTube comments support threaded replies, but people tend not to use them. Either just a UI issue (the reply button is not highlighted) or a deeper structural issue (people know that top-level comments won't be reordered, so they think the conversation will still be readable) or a prestige issue (both YouTube and Facebook collapse all replies to top-level comments by default, making it MUCH less likely that your comment will be read as a reply.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

sirmarksalot10y ago· 2 in thread

Threaded replies are a somewhat recent addition in both cases. In the case of Facebook, it's only been available for a couple months, and with YouTube, maybe a year or two. People are probably just used to the old way.

NamTaf10y ago

FB's threaded replies also only go 1 deep.

dredmorbius10y ago

As do YouTube's IIRC. See Jeff Atwood of StackExchange on his thoughts re: threading.

My thought is that HTML needs a comments primitive with date, author, subject, and references, with the resulting view (threaded, flat, collapsed, etc.) a client detail.

Or, you know, Usenet, tin.

1 more reply

gonehome10y ago

I think FB is different since it's a much smaller set of people and the replies go from the oldest down to the newest.

There also tend to be fewer comments (it's easy to see who is replying to who) so threading is typically not necessary on FB.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse