But... it does discourage discussion. It's a Q&A site, not a forum. You don't just post some thoughts and reply to other people's thoughts: you post either a question, or an answer. If you need clarification on a post, you comment. It's not a discussion forum.
And I'm not a new, disgruntled user. I like the site a lot and am quite active on the IT Security stackexchange site. From my semi-moderator's point of view, the only place for discussion is the chat function (which only a few regulars use).
Yeah... the problem is that SO is becoming the only place where people hang out, and it's really difficult to find active programming forums nowadays. Except, as you say, SO is not a forum, it's a QA site. Which means there is no place left for discussions. While I certainly use SO a lot to find those small bits of missing knowledge, I think it has made search for help (in specific cases) actually much harder.
Agreed! I moved to HN and SO after two forums slowly died. I have some friends from those forums, but a chat group is different from a forum with dozens or sometimes hundreds of active topics every day. Not just in activity, but also the kind of things you can talk about.
I'm not quite sure what is going to fill this gap. I don't always have a place to post things. Blogging doesn't exactly work without an audience. The mainstream things these days appear to be just chats. There are still forums, mailing lists... heck, there are BBSes but it's niche and hard to find anything that isn't already on the decline.
The discussion post is hard as you have to filter the noise and people who know less than they think they know. It might be doable but it is a hard problem
