Thread:Talk:Flow/Auto-archiving/reply (76)

You are concerned that this (to a person who has already read nearly all of this thread, not to someone reading it for the first time): [Collapsed comments (1,2,3)] Cartman: 4a Alice: 4a' (offtopic) [Collapsed comments (4b, 5, 6)]

will make the off-topic comment too visible. Well, actually, I don't think you'll see that. Cartman's post is old in your example, so you'd actually see this:

[Collapsed comments (1,2,3,4a)] Alice: 4a' (offtopic) [Collapsed comments (4b,5,6)]

or perhaps you'd see one line from each of them, to refresh your memory: [Collapsed #1: When in the course of hunam events...] [Collapsed #2: We need to discuss the definition...] [Collapsed #3: You have a typo at human...] [Collapsed Cartman: 4a] Alice: 4a' (offtopic) [Collapsed #4b: I agree.] [Collapsed #5: Are we sure this is "necessary"?] [Collapsed #6: Yes, but I think it's...]

If Alice had never made her comment, the thread would look like this:

[Collapsed comments (1,2,3,4a,4b,5,6)]

This, too, presumably makes reply #6 (which you read yesterday, or last week, or whenever) just as hidden as Alice's off-topic post.

What really matters isn't whether Alice's comment is "off-topic". What matters is whether it's useful. If people want to reply to it, then they should be able to, just like they are now. If their replies become unmanageable, then split the thread, just like we do now. By "just like we do now", I mean "this practice is already so common that the talk page guidelines have addressed the ways to do it for years now.