At least, not very conveniently, because I have to open all the subthreads at once then copy the sections to which I want to directly respond while hoping I don't miss any or copy them in the wrong order (to the extent order is still relevant under those conditions). And of course, if I want to respond to more than one person at once, if it's in fact logical to do so because five people make either related or virtually identical comments to which the same response is relevant, I either have to reply to each of them in turn, or hope they all choose to read a response I made to someone else. On phpBBs I frequently consolidate multiple responses into one and delete my originals to (GASP!) avoid spamming.

Since it's not important to you and is important to me can I have my way? I guess you've already answered that seriously though, since my preference has always been a hybrid. As far as dumbing down society, it's disappointing to see how the discussion deteriorated into "your format sucks donkeys because my leet format does x, y and z". It's encouraging that some nesting supporters can see and appreciate why others prefer paging (and I've tried to do my part to make the opposite clear on "my" side), but I think any system that forces the whole site to use either format exclusively is equally bad for different reasons. It's like the exchange above between §ol and me (yes, I still think of everyone by their wotmania names, and thanks a bunch for making life easier for me there): He prefers Borda voting and I prefer Instant Runoffs, for different reasons. That doesn't make either system bad, it means we prioritize different things and therefor prefer different systems. In that case we can't each use the system and thus enjoy the advantages we prefer, but in the case of board formats we can. A hybrids cost to either side is negligible to none, and far more inclusive than either format by itself, which fosters growth without mutilating site or community character. I'd rank my preferences Hybrid-3, Paged-2, Nested-1. Not that this is democracy.

Thanks once again to Stephen for referencing Poes Law last week; I've always used it, but it's good to know it has a name now. Personally, I find it quite a time saver to just hate what people do instead of the people; you can usually find something to hate about ANYONE, and don't have to feel guilty about it if you later find out they donated a kidney to a stranger.

Again, I don't think page style threads are about impatience so much as having only so many hours in the day and the desire to use time efficiently. When it comes to websites that means reading over a few pages of posts in five minutes rather than spending half an hour clicking your way through a thread with a hundred replies expressing variations on a dozen opinions. If clicking them all is no big deal, why do we have the *NM* tag telling people not to waste time clicking? Ever seen one of those on a phpBB?

FWIW though, I agree with you that new people aren't important enough to sacrifice the old ones, and that the forms and facilitators of RAFOs unique character (of which nesting is certainly one) should be prized and defended. The format may not be important to you, but it's certainly not trivial if you'd leave the site over it. I don't want to confront anyone with that choice. As I said above, I'd resist a push to make the site paged thread only just as strongly as I'm arguing for a paged option, and ultimately for the same reason: Because preferences aside I think it unwise and harmful to force any one system on the whole site if it excludes people who don't like it, be they Elder or newbie. It's not a question of which is better; each is better than the other in some ways and worse in others, but fortunately there's no reason we MUST choose one or the other, and for that reason I don't think we should. I much prefer a choice of formats that includes everyone to a(ny) single format that excludes anyone.