Next, the click-on-every-thread thing means that most of us only read threads by people we already know. That makes it difficult for a new person to build a good reputation, since one is largely ignored until you already /have/ a reputation. It's a catch-22 for anyone trying to join; people won't read their posts until they become known, and they can't become known until people read their posts. If you don't care about growth or the long-term viability of the site, then it's not a big deal. But if you want to avoid having the site go defunct in a matter of a few years, then membership growth should be a focus for us. And things that discourage new members from joining or participating should be looked at closely, even if it makes the rest of us uncomfortable.

As far as the ability to ignore tangents, they're equally easy to ignore them in both systems; it's actually easier in bb, I think. I don't how much time the naysayers have spent on bb forums (just enough time to say "ew" and turn around, it looks like), but it's actually not terribly different from the current style. Just picture the person's entire post showing, instead of only the title of the post. Posts go down the line in order just like they are now, and that's pretty much it. It's not very drastic at all! Showing only the post title and nothing else isn't even that useful relevancy-filtering-wise, since unless the poster makes it abundantly obvious in the title that it IS a tangent, one still has to click on it and read it to discover that it's irrelevant. There's no time saved there at all. Many posters don't put descriptive titles on their posts, instead often opting for RE: OP and such, which tells the potential reader absolutely nothing. (Or you get folks like me, who write ridiculously long posts and then can't think of a short, punchy title that encapsulates all the plethora of points, so they choose something lame for a title because there's no real way to sum everything up.) The subtrees also get cumbersome, like the one on this thread where they bunch up all the way at the right of the page. A few more twigs on the tree, and it'll be a squashed mess at the edge of the screen.

It's a failing of mine that I don't really understand why folks think that bb would be such a hassle. To me the current layout is much more arduous. A person is willing to click on 140 individual links (the number of replies so far) to read this thread, but that same person won't be willing to click 6 times go through the same amount of material? (The average number of posts per page is around 25, so a thread this length would be six pages). It's generally obvious from context who the poster is responding to, and if there are posters who consistently post asinine nonsense that you don't want to read you can perma-ignore them without having to buy a premium account. Think of it as basically horizontal navigation across pages, instead of vertical navigation scrolling through trees. The reason 95% of forums use it is not because of groupthink or whatever explanation someone gave a while back; it's because the software is simply more flexible and more usable. Despite some members' semi-irrational fears, it's a lot easier to use than what we currently have, and would not be much of a hassle, either to install or to learn to use.

Anyway, I'm sure I've probably wasted my breath here, and that you'll disagree with most everything that I've said. (Assuming you've read this far through my essay of a post, in which case I thank you for your attention.) I understand that the boards are conservative (or at least, the the most vocal and influential members of the boards are conservative; only a dozen or so people have responded to the tree-vs-bb portion of this thread, which on a board with hundreds of members (~75 at any given time, see above) seems like strangely few. If the topic is truly that controversial, I'm surprised a larger portion of the community hasn't commented on it....) Anyway, I understand that the changes I've suggested will most likely never be implemented, and that's ok. It's a wishlist, not a plan of action.