Isn’t Reddit the go-to place nowadays?
Also, for some reasons, reddit makes it really hard to find old content.
Reddit also couldn't replace Q&A such as stack overflow for instance.
There is a need for better, free and secure forum software though. I know Discourse tries to disrupt the market a bit.
Reflecting on my forum days, I don't think this is true. It's plain and simple to see subreddit members have STRONGLY held convictions that their subreddit is a unique and important community, just as they used to. I grew up on forums of < 100 people had made similar stupid arguments about the norms and salience of the forum to whatever topic it was aligned to. Yes, now there's karma farming, but it's not like people didn't make zounds of forum posts for the intended or subconsiously intended purpose of accruing social credit by demonstrating in group mentalities.
In general, there are good subreddits that sometimes develop community spirit. Unfortunately they are a fleeting phenomenon: either they grow too big, or die off (or in the rare case of AskHistorians, become something that can manage the flood), and if you don't find them by accident, it probable one heard about them because they are becoming too popular.
It's very nice for what it is, but it's not a counterexample to the problems with reddit because /r/AskHistorians achieves its famous reliability by outsourcing user authorization to the university system (you must be a historian to answer). This is not possible for any subreddit centering on a topic which is not famous enough to have entire departments of universities about it, such as, for example, Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo GameCube.
This was a fun thing when Starcraft 2 was new and it seemed like literally everyone on the /r/Starcraft reddit page was "high Diamond" league. (Diamond was still the highest league at the time).
Considering that only 25% of all players are in Diamond league and the game has no way of telling you whether you're low or high within the league, this was clearly bullshit. But everyone on the forum very desperately needed to validate their whining about "balance" by putting a veneer of being "skilled" on it.
It's infinitely frustrating because I find chronological sort to make the most sense, but social media sites destroyed chronological timelines and discussions because doing so results in intermittent reinforcement[1], a powerful type of conditioning.
[1] https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Interm...
I'm not sure about the ramifications of all this but it does sound scary and anything could be happening behind the scenes.