[joebo]

Nice work. A few thoughts came to mind after reading other comments.

I wonder how the tree concept works when responses are long or short. It seems to me that short would encourage more of a "ping pong" style thread which may be desirable in a tree form instead of a long-form question and reply.

It may be interesting and enjoyable to contribute to a site if there was a short length constraint placed on the reply. For sake of example, let's say it was 140 characters. That would force replies to be concise and give more of an anchor for others to jump off on in the conversation.

It could also make it more of a competition -- who can succinctly reply to the question with the most clarity?

Lastly, I think this could go a long way towards mitigating the curse of knowledge when people communicate. I see this and experience this when I participate in technical forums. It's easy to use jargon or advanced topics that the person may or may not understand. The tree approach gives a simple way for a follow-up question around the topic.

You may even consider tying this into the "five whys" which is a common questioning approach

[schwanray]

Thank you kindly Joebo and thank you for your awesome ideas. In fact we have thought about this exact thing, and there is a set height to the answer window to encourage short answers beyond which the users will have to scroll down and there is a page numbering system to show you how many pages there are/are left. We didn't go all the way and put a hard limit though but it is a very interesting idea and will see if others like it as well. The idea of the competition for succinct bullseye answers is also awesome! Since answers can be voted up and those with long answers requiring the scrolling may not be read as much or questioned more, there is an indirect route to this end effect currently implemented but may need improving. Please check it out and give feedback if possible.

Ah the "curse of knowledge"! That is such a bulls eye, home run, out of the park, spot on, accurate assessment and perfect read on your part! The curse of knowledge alienates most of the brightest minds from the rest us which is really sad and simple access to structured questioning could help remedy that age old problem.

As far as I remember the "five whys" should end in a feeling. Right now I feel really energized and inspired by your input since I now know that there are those out there like you who I really need and hope will get directly involved in helping this thing grow in the right direction! Do please keep in touch will ya!?