On the other hand, threading makes it possible for one group of people to spin off into a subtopic like discussing the relative merits of threaded vs linear boards, in the same general post about what Zuck said, without annoyingly hijacking the main topic. On HN I often find it useful to collapase the child responses and just read the top level, until something like this pulls me into a rabbit hole.
Threading isn’t an intrinsic sin, I think — sorting by upvotes is. The Discourse forum software allows sub-threads while still preserving a linear conversation style. You could also empower mods to spin off discussions into their own, separate threads. Points is what turns it into an inherent pissing match.
The annoying hijacking of a thread was a visible faux pas and helped keep the order of the message board with downward social pressure as opposed to an unbreakable rule (like forcing threaded boards).
