tatewise wrote:I do get that Stack Exchange has a particular way of handling its postings, and voting on answers is a novel technique, but in the genealogy domain where Forums are probably more focussed is it really that different?
Mike --
Apologies for the very tardy reply to your question from earlier this year -- I had been planning to weigh in on this discussion, and my computer went out, so I spent several weeks poking around trying to fix it -- after which I had forgotten to come back and contribute to this thread.
In the meantime, I've had that much more experience with G&FH.SE, having taken over moderator pro tem duties after ColeValleyGirl stepped down.
So I can answer with an unqualified YES. Stack Exchange really is that different.
The expectation in a forum is that people discuss things. The expectation on Stack Exchange is that someone asks a question, and others answer the question, in discrete, separate bits.
Here on FHUG or on the Mailing list, someone asks a question, and very often you are the one to step up and kindly guide the person to a resolution of their problem. There is a natural give-and-take, back-and-forth conversation that happens -- and if others come in later with the same problem, they often 'bump the thread' on the forum by posting "I'm having this problem too".
Notice however that you often steer new users towards the Knowledge Base, where there are Q/As relating to moving FH to a new machine, etc. so you don't have to post the same answers in the forum over and over and over again.
Stack Exchange's philosophy is that the sites, by means of the Q/As, are creating a Knowledge Base. There may be 'discussion' on a SE Question while it is being worked on, but requests for clarification or more information are made in comments on specific posts, not just added to the end of a thread -- the new information solicited by means of the comments are supposed to be incorporated into the Qs or As, and after a certain amount of time, the comments are erased because they are obsolete, leaving the clean Q/A.
We have a real problem now with many of the new users coming over to SE from forums, where they are used to posting "me too" additions to old threads, taking on comments as answers to existing questions, instead of asking new questions.
There is ample precedent for query sites in genealogy -- for example, my favorite UK site is
Curious Fox. No back-and-forth discussion happens there -- users post queries, and others send answers to the members' mailboxes. It isn't a discussion forum, and if someone were to list it as a forum, I would object for the same reasons.
Each kind of site -- whether a forum, a wiki, a query message board, a Q/A site, a mailing list archive -- has its own value -- all have different strengths and weaknesses. But when you try to do the work of one site on a platform that is designed for another, you get a mess, as I discovered yesterday while attending a live chat on Facebook.
I don't know how many of the users on FHUG will find G&FH.SE via the link, but I for one would appreciate some kind of description that would not set up the expectation there is a discussion forum at the other end.