My partner and I are going to be writing a message board system for a Web site. We’re at odds about the format of the board - flat vs threaded.
The SDMB is flat. Slashdot is threaded. Like this…
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Yikes! Tab + enter = new post…heh
Anyway…go to http://www.slashdot.com and see what a threaded board is.
I can’t stand threaded boards - they confuse the heck out of me. I have never participated in a threaded board in the 10+ years I’ve been online.
He, on the otherhand, reads Slashdot daily and another threaded board and he can’t see the value in a flat board like this. I showed him the “Reply” button with the built-in quoting and he still can’t understand.
We’re at an impasse where the answer to “what is the best type of board” comes down to what we’re used to.
So the poll is…
Flat.
I find that threaded results in threads inside threads. Not that it doesn’t happen here but in a threaded model, it seems to make the view more complicated than it needs to be.
I am 30 years old and male.
I prefer flat.
Female and 41.
Me, too. They’re just awful.
Flat, female, 39.
Threaded boards suck donkey.
Flat. Threaded is tolerable as long as it defaults to a “nested” version (so that everything is visible without clicking on a link) but flat is always more readable.
Female.
Oh, sorry for the double post, but I meant to add that your partner should probably do a similar poll over at a threaded forum somewhere to get a true picture of people’s preferences (Slashdot if they allow it).
Flat definitely. I do read a threaded board, but usually not beyond the first post.
Flat is much better for reading. I dislike threaded.
Male 39
Years ago, I ran a threaded message board system. It was a pain in the ass for users; there were individual links for every followup post. To read an entire thread required intensive mouse clicking and use of the browser’s back button. When I moved to a flat system, the users loved it. No complaints.
Most of the leading message board systems - vBulletin, Invision Power Board, phpBB, SMF, Burning Board, PunBB, MyBB, and so on – are flat by default. Same thing with the message boards that come with most content management systems, although Drupal has a hybrid system where replies to a post are indented. If users generally preferred threaded boards, message board systems like the ancient WWWBoard would be far more common.
BTW, 40 and male. The median age on my message board is in the early 30s, with about 35% being female.
Flat
Male 51
Threaded sucks. I always end up skipping answers to the OP because I am buried in a threaded reply.
Flat, for all the reasons mentioned above. Female, 31.
But even Threaded is better than whatever shite they’re using over at Yahoo in their “Discuss” pages. There is no thread format whatsoever - every post is it’s own entry, and they are simply listed (reverse) chronologically. It’s fine for “Comment”, but is not a good way to do a “Discussion”, IMHO.
Flat.
32/M.
I think a threaded message board gets too disorganized. The thread diverges into a dozen directions, and users can get trapped in one branch. It’s also more work to navigate through a threaded board, unless the software allows you to read through the entire thread easily. The Google Usenet interface (Google Groups) is the only threaded “message board” I can tolerate.
I totally agree with that (I mentioned this to him)…but what about LiveJournal and it’s seedy stepsister, DeadJournal? They are “new” and are red hot. They’re not intended as message boards but in many cases they are used as such.
I figure there’s got to be a reason for the LiveJournal folks to set it up this way (threaded)…is it actually popular?
Nothing screams 1996 like a threaded message board. Except for Slashdot, but Slashdot is its own creature.
i suspect the reason something like livejournal works as a threaded forum is that a) it’s livejournal, and is intrinsically popular enough for people to put up w/ it, and b) (i woudl guess) people tend not to be too interested in looking at older threads. If you’re looking up old topics on a threaded board, it’s hard to figure it out. If you’re following it close ot realitime, not so much so.
As for me, It could be a forum for winning lottory numbers, and I wouldn’t read a threaded foum. male, 32
Flat! Anything more complicated than straight chronological order is just too complicated to keep track of. I’m a 24 year old male.
Flat. Always flat.
Female, 27.
Livejournal threading gets very annoying at times, especially with over 100 comments and threads within threads, not to mention deleted and reposted comments. With just a few comments (which most entries get) it’s not a problem.
Actually the SDMB has three modes available to everyone all the time.
If you look above the OP you will find a blue band with four links: View First Unread (on the left), and Thread Tools, Search This Thread, and Display Modes (on the right).
Clicking on the Display Modes link reveals three different modes, including a threaded mode.
FWIW, why create another message board when there are plenty of quality open source and commercial boards already out there?