This request comes up regularly, the last time two weeks ago
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11355038" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11355038</a><p>Summary: most users agree, some wrote browser plugin, some are willing to pay for a solution. It's up to the admins to find time to implement the feature.
Some third party clients already support comment collapse :)<p>I'm keeping a list of all HN clients here: <a href="https://pinboard.in/u:tedmiston/t:hacker-news/" rel="nofollow">https://pinboard.in/u:tedmiston/t:hacker-news/</a><p>You can bookmark it, filter by web vs. mobile vs. native, etc.<p>For comment collapse, I'd look at Premii's client in particular.
Oh man it pains me not having it! So many threads have a really long first comment chain about a tangent within the article or about a related project.