Let's put it this way: someone interested only in high-rated comments can fairly easily make a visual scan to find the highest scores. Someone who wants to read all the comments chronologically, by contrast, will find the analogous procedure tedious and inconvenient in the extreme.
My main concern, however, isn't even this. It's new users/people unfamiliar with LW mistakenly thinking the comments are chronological when they aren't, and being confused or getting the wrong impression of the flow of discussion. (This has happened before.) The kind of readers savvy enough to be interested in high-scoring comments are also likely to be the kind of readers savvy enough to change default settings.
Default settings are what you see when you're not logged in; they should conform to the expectations of outsiders.
My main concern, however, [is] new users/people unfamiliar with LW mistakenly thinking the comments are chronological when they aren't, and being confused or getting the wrong impression of the flow of discussion.
Which is important if you think that comments in separate threads usually rely on flow? Aren't those comments overwhelmingly in threads?
Default settings are what you see when you're not logged in; they should conform to the expectations of outsiders.
Default settings are what you see when you're new; they should be the setting most likely to...
Following along from Louie's post and the discussion around it…
How should new visitors to Lesswrong see posts and comments ordered and filtered? (Assume we'll address the new visitors should be introduced to the site issue.) These will remain settings that are easily changed, but how should they start?
Current defaults:
Promoted posts, ordered by recency is our most prominent post list.
Comments are sorted by "Popular", which is Top with a very strong ageing of points (so recently voted comments rise to the top of the list, and very high voted comments fairly quickly drop away).
Options seeded in comments by me below, my karma balance at bottom. Please vote on at least one "Posts:" comment and one "Comments:" comment.