They are useful because they are divided into themes. Participants in the discussion can choose a theme they want to participate in and can respond to a particular statement in the discussion.
Participants can easily see who responds to what.
Threaded discussions are commonly used by the Faculty Senate at Kansas State University. Click here to see an example. Below are a couple of resources for making threaded discussions. Microsoft FrontPage You can create a threaded discussion group easily with FrontPage. To do so, go to the FrontPage Explorer's File menu, select New and choose FrontPage Web.