Default Topic View - Expanded Top Level Replies, Collapsed Lower Level Replies
I'd like to suggest that the default view for topics look something like the image below, with expanded top level replies, and collapsed lower level replies. And have an option under each reply that would expand the next level of replies below it, continuing this behavior on down to the lowest level comments. There could even be an "Expand all below this comment", although I don't show that in this illustration.
That would all readers to quickly read through many or all of the direct responses to the topic before deciding which responses to dig into deeper. It would also help direct responses which aren't listed near the top get more exposure. The site could even be coded to delay loading lower level comments until an expand link is clicked, reducing page sizes and improving load times.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0u6vuopufierijp/TildesDefaultThreadDisplay.png?dl=0
That seems designed to incentivize top level comments, rather than conversations, which is antithetical to Tilde's goals.
I get where you're coming from—sometimes you start looking at the comments, and the first comment chain is so long you end up never reaching the next top level comment. A better solution might be giving the user control to easily collapse an entire comment chain from anywhere. Like lines down the left indicating the nesting level of comments that are clickable and collapse down to that level.
I see your point, but I look at it as making easier for me to see all the conversations in order to find one or more to participate in, instead of getting bogged down in just the first few conversations because it requires a lot of scrolling or collapsing just to get past them.
In your mockup, users aren't seeing conversations. They're just seeing lone voices.
Where you see people "getting bogged down", I see people being incentivized to read the entirety of a topic — top- and sub-level comments — before initiating a reply. I think it's better for people to read more, leading to them getting a more holistic view of the topic before venturing in to a reply.
I guess I kind of see those top level replies as various "beginnings of conversations", each taking a different tangent on the original topic, and I'm assuming I can make some decisions about which tangents interest me (and which don't) based on the content of those top level replies. But my experience is all anecdotal...I certainly haven't put a lot of effort into analyzing it.
It's how I've used Reddit though. Read a top level reply, decide to collapse it or read further, repeat, repeat...
If your point is that you cannot see which top level comments are interesting to partecipate to, then the solution is already implemented.
When you read a top level comment that you find not interesting, click the - box to collapse it and all its child comment.
Yes, I understand. The point of my post was what the DEFAULT view should be. I think there's a belief that different defaults will encourage different behaviors. It's not overly burdensome to me the way it is now, but I thought there were some advantages to changing the default display...