> The "threaded" format to this message board makes you feel like you have to respond to a specific person, not to a general idea. On UBB-type message boards (sheesh, is it possible to date yourself on the internet?), you can reply to a thread without it being so personal: you're just throwing your ideas into the mix, not responding to a specific person (unless you choose to do so explicitly).

I would like to note that I feel exactly the opposite. I despise flat message boards because they seem cluttered and hard to follow. Despite that the RinkForum lacks a lot of technical features found in other boards, it is one of my absolute favorite to read and post on from a purely layout perspective.

> Look at this whole thread. One beginning post, 6-7 replies to the "parent" post, but none (excepting this) to any of the second-level posts. Why?

Because in this instance I don't think there's a lot to follow-up on. It's people expressing their own opinions. If Dave says he doesn't post much any more because he's busy playing poker, there's not much to respond to.

Some of the best threads in this forum's history, however, have been ones in which there have been tons of active sub-threads that divulge off a main topic, allowing nuanced discussion of different ideas that might be tangential to the original one.

This is a strength of traditionally threaded discussion groups: unlike chat or speech, if someone says something that sparks an idea, you can examine that idea without derailing the conversation. This kind of parallel discussion is almost impossible in any other medium.

I am actually a lot less likely to post on flat boards. If somebody starts a thread and there are 50 responses, I feel as though I can't respond to a point made by the fifth poster without reading the 45 responses that follow in case somebody has already made my point. This is in spite of the fact that often by post #50 the conversation is somewhere entirely different. On a threaded board you don't have this problem: I can quickly persue a sub-thread and see if there's something I should add and then return to the main idea without forgetting what I was going to say.

Does that make sense?

I agree that flat boards are more conversational, but to me forums are inherently non-conversational. Real-time chat is better suited if you want a conversation, forums are better for in-depth discussion. But it's a matter of preference.

As I near the end of this post, I think it makes a good example. Nowhere in my post did I address the original topic of this thread -- the reasons for the Forum's slowness -- but my digression is not likely to derail that conversation.

Stephen