I agree that it's exciting, and I really hope it's successful. I like the SE model.
But the great things about SE are
i) strict moderation
ii) limited, clear, scope
iii) separated meta
Some of that can be helped by the software, but most of it comes from human involvement.
I'm still not sure how the new software will ease the problems that forums face.
i) Web searching a problem returns a hit for a forum. I visit the forum, to see someone asking my question, and someone else saying "Search the web, noob".
ii) People just love feeding trolls. It's trivially easy for trolls to disrupt forums.
iii) Vested_Contributors - forums have rules. New users get punished for not following the rules; long term users have people making excuses for them ("It's Bob! Everyone knows Bob! And he makes great posts normally, so let him off this time!").
iv) Signal : Noise - and this is made worse by having limited number of posts per page. A 29 page thread, with many people saying "Wow, great!!!" is a sucky experience. Especially since most forum search software really sucks.
But the great things about SE are
i) strict moderation
ii) limited, clear, scope
iii) separated meta
Some of that can be helped by the software, but most of it comes from human involvement.
I'm still not sure how the new software will ease the problems that forums face.
i) Web searching a problem returns a hit for a forum. I visit the forum, to see someone asking my question, and someone else saying "Search the web, noob".
ii) People just love feeding trolls. It's trivially easy for trolls to disrupt forums.
iii) Vested_Contributors - forums have rules. New users get punished for not following the rules; long term users have people making excuses for them ("It's Bob! Everyone knows Bob! And he makes great posts normally, so let him off this time!").
iv) Signal : Noise - and this is made worse by having limited number of posts per page. A 29 page thread, with many people saying "Wow, great!!!" is a sucky experience. Especially since most forum search software really sucks.