User A: "COVID-19’s symptoms can vary from person to person, and the vast majority of people do not present life-threatening symptoms. This can make it easy to conclude that COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone [edit: here’s a source that shows that many people actually believe COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone: statistics.net]. This is an unfortunate situation, because trusting the science can lead people to use appropriate masks and reduce its spread. [edit: added the word “appropriate” thanks to User C]
User B: "Really? I don’t know anyone who believes COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone"
User A: "I responded to you by adding a source to my original comment through an edit"
User C: “My niece used a cloth mask in the Prague metro and still got COVID-19. I suppose the type of mask matters.”
"You’re right! I’ll edit my original comment to reflect that."
User D: “I’m sure you won’t reply to this comment if I say that I don’t accept science.”
and they don’t generally do this:
[Original post by OP about COVID-19] Comments:
User A: "COVID-19’s symptoms can vary from person to person."
User A: "Many people think COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone."
User A: "My source for this is statistics.net"
User B: "Really? I don’t know anyone who believes COVID-19 cannot possibly kill someone"
User A: "I responded to you by adding a source to my original comment through another comment"
User A: "Mask usage helps reduce the spread of COVID-19."
User C: “My niece used a cloth mask in the Prague metro and still got COVID-19. I suppose the type of mask matters.”
The point is that we usually don’t split our points into many comments of the same level. Levels here refer to this:
Level 1 of a comment tree
Level 2 of a comment tree
Level 2 of a comment tree
Level 3 of a comment tree
Level 1 of a comment tree
When I say that we take that for granted, I mean that I don’t see people splitting up their comments in the same level. Neither do I see people talking about splitting up their comments. In other words, neither in practice nor in discourse do people split up their comments.