@cache_miss

The Why is going to be a bit subjective so I’ll try to lay out the more “concrete” differences between creating a thread (of which article is just one type) and a post.

Posts:

1. Will federate to all your direct followers regardless of platform. If they are using a microblogging platform like Mastodon, this means it will show up in their home feeds just like any other post.
2. Will not be seen on the “front page” by default since the default behavior is to have the “front page” show threads, not posts. A person can click the “Microblog” tab at the top to view all the posts instead, but that requires a click.
3. Posts, unlike threads, will display the conversation without needing to click. You can compare by checking it out on kbin.social, but you’ll notice that the threads on the front page will just have the opening title and a small description, but will not show the comments or replies to it. If you click on the microblogging tab, you’ll see posts along with their replies automatically without need to click on them.
4. Posts do not have subject lines. This means that typically on a platform like Mastodon, the post will show up without any content-warning masking the body.
5. While threads are relatively widely supported on other platforms, posts are almost universal due to being a core part of the microblogging Fediverse.
6. I don’t know for sure, but I believe posts don’t show up on Lemmy instances. Someone will have to correct me on that, though.
7. Replying to the OP Post is more intuitive. To reply to a Post, you just have to click at the bottom of the OP’s Post on the “reply” link. This is different in a Thread (if you’re trying to reply to the OP and not a comment)

Threads:

1. Have a subject line and a body. This means on non-kbin/lemmy instances, it is likely that any content that is federated to them (Mastodon, etc) will show with a content warning and masked body.
2. Will potentially show on the front page by default.
3. Can show and embed media which can be displayed by default depending on an individual user’s settings.
4. Depending on the type, will federate in unexpected ways. Links, for example, that have a description can show on Mastodon without the description (I believe) and thus makes for unexpected behavior on non-kbin platforms.
5. Threads will give you the option to add Badges to the content when you create it. I don’t know when that will be fully implemented, but I suspect it will be a way for Magazine subscribers to “customize” the presentation of their thread depending on which badge(s) are applied.
6. Replying to the OP’s initial content can be more troublesome. For a thread that has a lot of comments on it, in order to add a comment, you have to scroll to the bottom of all comments (or all the comments on the first page of comments) to see the comment box. Replying to an existing comment on a thread is easy as the comment has a “reply” link at the bottom of the comment, but for a thread, the “add a comment” box is below all the current comments.

These are just the differences that I can think of off the top of my head. Also, if I’m wrong on any of these, I hope someone corrects me.

Thank you and I hope that helps.

@Nodachi216