To Thread or Not to Thread

Within the realm of message boards, there are a couple of different ways to organize the messages. Many people don't realize this, but it can make all the difference in the world in how people interact on your message boards. Some people have a strong preference for one or the other, but either will work. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Even if you prefer one style, the needs of your community may dictate that you at least consider the other style.

There are two basic ways to view message board posts: threaded and conversational.

Conversational (Linear, Chronological) View

In conversational view, also known as linear or chronological view, posts are placed in chronological order, one after the other. This organizational method is good for a group of regular participants engaged in free-flowing, deep conversation. For example, this might work well with a health-related community in which there are groups for various illnesses and members are providing support to one another. It's harder to reply to individual messages, and more difficult to find "the answer" out of the bunch, however, so if you need to be able to find needles in haystacks, you might be better off with a threaded organizational structure. Conversational mode is more of a many-to-many discussion.

Threaded View

In threaded forums, the posts are arranged like an outline, with one post immediately following the one to which it is replying. Threaded organization works well in situations where people need to be able to find a particular piece of information in a hurry, such as in technical support forums. Threaded organization fosters multiple small one-to-one conversations rather than one group discussion.

A Comparison

While threaded conversations might seem more organizationally intuitive, forums generally get more participation when they use conversational mode. This is because people tend to find conversations straightforward and easy to follow.

If you have not experienced both modes, I would encourage you to do so, to get a feel for which one you prefer. Quite frankly, I have a strong bias toward conversational mode. Threading works well for newsgroups and other non-Web-based applications, but I feel that it's more difficult to use it on the Web.

Webcrossing Settings

Whatever you decide is best for your community, Webcrossing's got you covered.  In the Control Panel > Discussions page, you can choose from:

• Default to threaded, but user can choose conversational in their preferences
• Default to conversational, but user can choose threaded in their preferences
• Mandate threaded
• Mandate conversational

And whatever you choose can be overridden for an individual discussion on the Edit Discussion page, even in mid-discussion.

My favorite combination of settings is to set the actual discussions for conversational view (mandate it), and then in the "Tabular Message View" settings, turn on the option to show replies.  This puts links between the message and the message being replied to.  At the bottom of the message being replied to is a list of all the replies.  At the top of each reply is a link back to the one it was a reply to.  In that way, you can still enjoy the advantages of conversational view while still being able to follow threads if necessary.

Feel free to experiment!