There's a couple really big things I like about linear. As you said you can follow the thread of conversation in chronological order. Another big thing for me is that it doesn't have comment karma. Upvotes and downvotes result in echo chambers that suppress alternative viewpoints. PG got it almost right here by making you have to meet a threshold to downvote, but I think it would be better if downvotes didn't exist here at all. It becomes an "I disagree with your opinion" button. Also, threaded discussions encourage people to just highjack one of the top voted threads instead of replying to a more relevant person later down the line.
Also on the topic of moderation, I feel like less is more. Unless it's spam, child pornography, or threats of violence, it should probably just be left alone. Reddit in particular is extremely over moderated these days. Outside of a handful of subreddits, it is impossible to post conservative views because moderators will ban you for them. Just basic stuff like "I support <Republican candidate> and here's why..." results in a ban. Even just being subscribed to /r/conservative is enough to be automatically banned from several other subreddits. While there are exceptions, most of the moderators are in actuality just a bunch of petty, censorious tyrants.
> As you said you can follow the thread of conversation in chronological order.
But it's not chronological, it's posting order. It's pretty common to have sub-threads with different focus and timeflow emerging in the middle of linear threads
> Another big thing for me is that it doesn't have comment karma.
Implementation-detail. And Linear boards can also have karma-systems.
But on the other side, it supports a community-driven moderation.
> It becomes an "I disagree with your opinion" button.
Yes, that is a problem. There should be more options available, maybe a limited set of emojis to communicate the impression of something, instead of bland down/upvotes. It kinda works well on Github and Discord, but has less usage by the systems there.
> Also, threaded discussions encourage people to just highjack one of the top voted threads instead of replying to a more relevant person later down the line.
Which is not bad? At least you can ignore them. Linear has no option for this, all is the same mess.
> Also on the topic of moderation, I feel like less is more.
Depends on the topic, community and size, also the country. Illegal content has always to be moderated by law.
And in general, offtopic has to be moderated.
> "I support <Republican candidate> and here's why..." results in a ban
Again, on or offtopic? Each subreddit has a focus, and if it's out of this focus, it's justified to remove it. For example, I would not like to see discussions about PHP in a C-Subreddit, this is simply a waste of my time and attention.
Also on the topic of moderation, I feel like less is more. Unless it's spam, child pornography, or threats of violence, it should probably just be left alone. Reddit in particular is extremely over moderated these days. Outside of a handful of subreddits, it is impossible to post conservative views because moderators will ban you for them. Just basic stuff like "I support <Republican candidate> and here's why..." results in a ban. Even just being subscribed to /r/conservative is enough to be automatically banned from several other subreddits. While there are exceptions, most of the moderators are in actuality just a bunch of petty, censorious tyrants.