they're extremely underrated. they were one of the most eff…

they're extremely underrated. they were one of the most effective means of knowledge sharing because they had some essential properties:
they allowed for long-form content.
they allowed for quoting.
they natively supported threading: conversations had natural spaces to grow and didn't get mixed with other topics.
they were easy to digest both synchronously and asynchronously (you can "chat" in them, but they also preserve conversational context so you can come back later and pick up where you left off).
they organized threads by topic: similar requests and conversations were grouped together. you knew where to go for technical support, people selling things, or just casual conversations.