Discourse, in nowadays, is not a Q&A software. Rationale: there are some well-known Question-and-Answer softwares (Q&A), like AskBot, but Discourse is not figured there. And a lot of black-box interfaces, as Stackoverflow or Quora, that can be classified as Q&A sites, but we not see any Discouse-site figured there… Even a site using Discourse with some plugin or some alternative module.
We (example) need not a topic-blog, but to vote the topics and the answer-posts, and we need a good interface to it, and a good database / back-end to it… Not a “secondary like-vote” or a fake feature… But “near to clone” interface, like AskBot/Stackoverflow.
And there are a big market demand (!)… So, why the resistance to build a good module or plugin for it? There are some legal impediment (Jeff vs Stackoverflow competition)?
I think you kind of answered your own question… The biggest impediment to making Discourse Q&A software is that Discourse isn’t Q&A software.
If making Discourse a good Q&A platform would mean changing the underlying structure that makes Discourse a good conversation platform… then it’s not likely to happen. It’s just incongruent with what Discourse is meant to do at that point.
I don’t think anyone’s opposed to improving the existing Solved or Voting plugins. Are there specific things you’d need for those to work better for you?
Please note that I am (quite successfully if I say so myself) using Discourse as a Q&A platform.
I think many others are doing this as well. It isn’t as focused on competing answers as SO, but it’s perfect for niche topics, where an organisation can share its knowledge and have discussions with their customer base.
I’m wondering why a “site” could not have varied apps running under it. AFAIK, many Discourse forums integrate with WordPress. I see no reason why the same couldn’t happen with a QA (or wiki, or video streaming, or whatever) app. Just because something hasn’t been done yet doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
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