Sub-Threads for Tangents

March 3, 2001 6:11 PM

Would it be good, bad, or otherwise to have the ability to create a “sub-thread” for a comment purposefully going off on a tangent? Personally, I think it could be useful, but it could easily become overused. I can’t think of a satisfactory way to prevent someone from making every single comment into a sub-thread for no good reason. The best idea I could come up with (and I’m not saying it’s even a good idea) is to limit sub-threads to once per topic (per user). Of course, it’s a possibility that more than one tangent might originate under a single thread but, in that case, the result (not being able to post a sub-thread for a tangent) is equivalent to what we have now (i.e., no sub-threads). Also, someone else might post a sub-thread for the tangent. Can anyone think of any better solutions, or is this a lame idea in the first place?

Also, although it may be handy, I don’t think MeFi would benefit from sub-threads to sub-threads (i.e., a sub-thread inside another sub-thread). At least not at this time.

Also also, if you do end up implementing this, it might be kinda cool to have a link to a topic’s sub-threads on MeFi’s main page (under the topic, e.g.). This could become a problem if a topic has a ton of sub-threads, but I don’t think it’s likely to become a serious problem. It might happen, but I doubt it would happen very often.

Also also also, the button on Post a Thread to MetaTalk reads Preview the Link. I noticed this just a second ago, and it doesn’t really bother me, but (perhaps) just Preview would be more appropriate.
posted by gleemax to Feature Requests at 6:11 PM