That's interesting. I only "follow" (or whatever they call it) a few people on Quora, and Quora sends me an email of what some of them have said over the last two or three days, and I pop over to see what the opinion is about. And, then, there's already some sort of conversation or fight underway - but usually pretty light.

Generally, I find Quora to be a pretty "ok" place to have a conversation. Better than most of Reddit, for sure. (Reddit does have some fantabulous subs to be sure, but not very many! :-) )

EDIT: HN is good for conversations in threads, although they can veer off track pretty wildly. Reddit can get pretty vitriolic. You could have a conversation, but the participants destroy it. Twitter? Fuggedaboutit. Are there sites I ought to look at where I can have a polite discussion with people that I may or may not agree with on various topics? [FWIW - Before 2008, Reddit itself was pretty close to this, except for maybe /r/politics]