Sometimes I revisit a forum issue and when I do I have to tab down to the bottom to see new development or comment. Would it be better if comment sequencing be in the LIFO mode? (Last in first out).

drmr4vrmr reignites one of the oldest disputes in computer-dom: whether a computer-mediated discussion should be presented in natural sequence (oldest first aka 'bottom posting') or in inverse sequence with the newest first (aka 'top posting'). One way to sidestep the discussion would be to offer both alternatives and let the user choose.

I favour the current arrangements (i.e. bottom posting) because you start off seeing how the discussion started off.

On topics that you are explicitly tracking, the discussion opens at the latest, new comment which you haven't yet read - which is very sensible. e.g. if you have read 30 comments, but there are 4 new ones you haven't read, then the 31st comment is displayed.

For the rest, it opens at the first post. Since many people don't quote earlier replies, the alternative would be something like this:

TOPIC TITLE: QUESTION !!!???

LATEST REPLY: What's wrong with f3?

INITIAL POSTING: I've heard you shouldn't leave your knight on f3. Is there genuine theory behind this - or has someone just made it up to illustrate a point?

If the discussion spans more than one page (about 20 posts), a LAST POST navigation link is provided to take you directly to the final contribution.

REFERENCES

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/brox.html

so there is a difference in presentation. thanks for the info artfizz. makes lot of sense to me. in that case consider my comment widrawn