BYOND forums used tree comments in chronological order with an unread marker

IMO that should be an option (twitter style, reddit style or chronological style). Wonder if there is browser extension for it.

That said discord kinda does it and I just can't stand it. Unusable to me.

Discord threads are just an addon on top of a chat. It's not really a real discussion. And the discord discussions (or whatever it is called) are again flat IIRC? Slack threads are flat. Both are chat platforms first and foremost I would say.

Reddit lets you sort by Best (default), Top (highest raw score), New/Old (chronological), and also Controversial - no add-on required. It's right above the first comment.

"Best" is a time-weighted blend of scoring, so that well-voted but late contributions are more likely to be visible despite fewer overall votes. Certainly not perfect, but helps bias away from "first to comment wins"

Except that most people just go with best. Tons of new comments are shouted into the void, never to be heard by anyone except for a handful of the curious.