I wonder if a hybrid might work well - a Reddit/HN style system for comments, but a simple forum style method of post ranking by last activity. So if you make a comment on a post, the post goes to the top of the page.
This could work for comment threads too - where the comment threads on the post are also ranked by last activity.
It keeps the nice branching comment threads we've grown used to, but avoids having upvotes and downvotes and the opaque algorithm deciding what gets shown first (or at all).
In addition to oldest/newest/"best", you can sort top level comments by time descending, and deeper comments by time _ascending_ or by votes — creating a kind of "micro blog feed" where each top level comment is the most recent "micro blog post" — but replies don't have to share the same sort order. "Newest, then popular" and "Newest, then oldest" I call these sort orders.
Also click the "Recent posts" in the upper right corner, to see the most recent comments sorted by time descending.
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Anyway. There's people who think the hybrid approach you mentioned is an good idea.
Thanks! I don't tend to use the GitHub discussion very much (just commenting on a few Issues) so I didn't know!
The Talkyard example is interesting - how does it differ to the algorithms Reddit uses to sort by "Best" or "Hot" when looking at comments (I think Best is the default now too, not Top, so presumably it takes recency etc. into account somehow).
This could work for comment threads too - where the comment threads on the post are also ranked by last activity.
It keeps the nice branching comment threads we've grown used to, but avoids having upvotes and downvotes and the opaque algorithm deciding what gets shown first (or at all).