Flat comments

In the aftermath of the big gun control post commentfest, I’ve changed the configuration at DDtB to use flat instead of threaded comments. I found (a) it too easy for new comments to go unseen if they were made in reply to something in the middle of a post, (b) the REPLY link was going away after you got in a few levels, which caused problems, and (c) I have a larger-print narrow-column format that didn’t lend itself well to that kind of threading.

This has really not been a problem before — most of the conversations here have been single-threaded or fairly linear.  But this case showed a problem.  So now all comments will go in sequentially.

If you are commenting on a post here and it might not be obvious to whom you are responding, the standard Internet protocol for such things is mentioning the poster name with an @ in front if it, like so: “@BD: Are you out of your freaking gourd?” I also number my comments; you can also reference back to comments that way.

Again, I don’t see a huge amount of this kind of thing coming up — we don’t have that many lengthy and complex discussions here. But in case we do, I think this will work a bit better.