Megathreads

This is a slight digression, but I think that the rise of megathreads/ultrathreads/collections of threads on reddit has been a large detriment to the site.

I'm a mod for a few large subreddits that utilizes them (and I know a good portion of people reading Tildes right now are as well), and as time goes on I've started to dislike them more and more.

At first they were great - they seemed to silo off all the posts and noise that happened around an event, and made the lives of mods easier. Posts that should've been comments could now be removed, and the user could be pointed towards the megathread. Users could go back to the post and sort by new to see new posts, and know that they'd all have to do with that one topic.

I believe that this silo actually hurts the community, and especially the discussion around that original megathread, more than it helps. As modteams I think we underestimate the resilience of our communities, and their ability to put up with "noise" around an event.

The fact that we are in a subreddit dedicated to that cause should be silo enough - each post in that subreddit should be treated as an "atomic" piece of information, with the comments being branches. By relegating all conversation to a megathread we turn top level comments into that atomic piece of information, and subcomments into the branches.

But that's just a poor implementation of the original! There are some edge cases where this might make sense (take /r/politics, it wouldn't make sense to have 9 of the top 10 posts just be slightly reworded posts on the same issues), but I think this can be remedied by better duplication rules (consider all posts on a certain topic to be a repost, unless the new post has new or different information).

There is something to be said about the ability to generate a new, blank sheet of conversation with a post, that is not marred with previous information or anecdotes. New comments on a megathread post don't have that luxury, but new posts do.

Additionally, I feel like the way reddit originally conditioned us to view posts is to view them then not check them again (unless we interacted with someone in it or got a notification). This prevents potentially great (but late) content from gaining visibility, as a non-negligible portion of the population will still be browsing the subreddit, but will never click the post again.

Edit: I feel like this might be too much of a digression, so I reposted this as a post here

There has been talk of megathreads but they likely wont get implemented until there is some trusted users tools in place so standards can be enforced, particularly in regards to objectivity of the self-text and sources. @ReAn even whipped up a prototype based on what was discussed, which is pretty neat: https://jsfiddle.net/5pfjcx4L/embedded/result/

However one of the major issues with megathreads, IMO, is how quickly they lose their usefulness in the comments sections so there was also talk of ways to deal with that, e.g. every #k comments or # hours fold all the comments up into an expando so the comment section essentially resets but people can still access the older comments as well if they want to. But the idea probably need a lot more refining.

Megathreads are really only useful when you have a ton of posts going out of control on a single topic. Right now it's not needed as the site is so small, but it's definitely worth thinking about how and if they should be implemented.

• Should ~ mods post them? Or is that putting too much power in the hands of mods who would then remove other threads?
• Should users be creating them, and then mods giving them megathread status?
• Maybe it's just something trusted users should be able to post?
• Should there just be a separate ~megathreads for major happenings? Probably not, since a major happening for say, MMA fans is not going to be the same as one for eSports enthusiasts.

Or maybe we don't need them at all as some threads garner votes/traffic organically, and others filter out.

Megathreads always seem to stifle discussion

While each outlet will have the same general topic they will take there own nuanced look at it. A specific article will bring in it's own voice and color to the discussion and it is generally tailored to it's audience.

Megathreads smear that color until it is just a grey streak. It is just a headline with no substance or analysis of the world around it.

Also in high volume post, the 1st couple of okay comments dominate the discussion sphere, taking the air out of the event being discussed.

No real discussion happens about any of the individual articles being posted in main megathread.