Just wanna chime in with @codinghorror and @jord8on in support of Discourse being fun and not just frictionless or simple. I’m a heavy user of 4 forums on the same health topic.
Frictionless: Those not using Discourse irritate me considerably for a number of reasons like general navigation (finding new threads, new posts etc.), allowed editing time, no composer preview, no drafts, less formating or how slowly their emojis often open (if they have any at all). It may be “subtle to figure out … which comment I am responding to”, but the only forum-software of the 4 that does this more than Discourse makes it almost impossible to find the latest post.
(Not frictionless: On one other forum searching is easier because the phrase snip is more relevant. I’ve given up searching for certain posts on the other 2 - or use a search engine.)
Simple: Only very slight problems for myself, I can’t imagine others having less problems with the other 3.
Fun: OK, I do have a fast learning curve for this sort of stuff, but it’s built up so logically, so many possibilities directly under the surface, I can “work” fast (incl. keyboard shortcuts), editing, drafts, linking is easy, loads of additional functions, formating, hiding details etc. do really make it fun for me, which is one reason I’ve chosen that forum for writing my blog as opposed to the others (the 2nd being the people there are nicer than everywhere else too… - wdnt be surprised if that were somehow magically 
or psychologically connected 
too)…
Error messages reinterpreted as fun trophies: As Discourse promises the world and the version that forum uses “only” trades in a continent it whets appetite for trying to do more than it can, so I get error messages like others get trophies, which the mods often can’t explain, like when editing too much or too quickly or the “429 no reason phrase”… I reinterpret this as fun too, altho I may be stumped a bit till I find a workaround…
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