Currently all forums are viewed as flat by default, one post right below another. Everyone is allowed to choose a different view though. I am using threaded right now.

Would it be too confusing for newbies to use threaded view by default? I know quite a few of you prefer threaded so for you it goes without asking, but my main concern are new people who may be coming to the site, especially those used to the usual flat view on other forums (like phpbb, vBulletin etc.). If it would confuse them too much to see some posts indented and the order of posts not being exactly by the time of posting, I wouldn't do it.

But if you think that flat-view being the easiest is a myth and have some arguments for that or maybe even know newbie friends who said they like threaded better on forums, I'd consider changing the default to threaded.

Thanks