What are some good design patterns for "still developing stories"

NaraVara
2019-10-10T16:16:16Z

I apologize if this is a topic that has been covered before. I haven't really been able to find anything and I'm not really sure what a good search keyword is. But I noticed this as part of the Hearthstone player ban thread.

On a traditional bulletin board forum it's not really an issue because the conversations unfold chronologically anyway. When you have the atemporality of threaded comment chains that gets disorganized fast.

Basically, it's a "still developing" story where more events and news keep happening that's germane to the discussion. As the news comes up, people who already read the thread might not see the comments being posted about subsequent developments and be able to follow it because each piece of additional news or info. ends up happening in a comment/sub-thread that ends up arranged in fairly arbitrary, rather than chronological order.

The Democratic Debate threads have been similar, where the reactions and consequences of the topics being discussed can keep a discussion going for a long time, but it all happens in sub threads that people are unlikely to see. Many of these developments don't really merit a thread of their own, but after a few days or so it gets hard to actually have a big-picture discussion because the news has overtaken the scope of the discussion thread.

In a thread with an active OP, I've noticed what tends to happen is the OP will steadily edit new developments into the main post to update it. I think this has actually worked pretty well BUT edits don't bump posts as far as I can tell. Also, the people posting the updates aren't necessarily getting as much credit (in terms of votes, exemplary labels, or whatever) and, insofar as that matters to people that's a thing. Do you think this is adequate as things scale or would some novel design or subcomment system be needed?

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