Explaining difference between forums and Q&A

[bbraglio]

How do you explain to your community members the differences between a Q&A feature and forum boards? Looking to have copy that encourages quick and simple questions using Q&A feature versus encouraging deeper discussions in forums. What has worked for you?

[Parshant]

Lithium forums generate activity to keep people coming back and generating traffic on the community. This traffic creates a large base of content.

You can read more information about Lithium forums here.

Q&A is a place where community members and visitors can search for questions that have already been answered by experts or submit their own questions. It’s also a place where experts can share their knowledge with others.

You can read more information about Q&A here.

[bbraglio]

Thanks! I'm looking more for examples of the copy that managers are using to direct their members to either submit a question OR post their question/topic in the forums. Our members aren't understanding the difference.

[Parshant]

@bbraglio,

Then this article link will help you.

[CarolineS]

I wonder if it’s worth having both enabled. We just have normal forums with the “accepted solution” feature enabled (and accepted solutions are displayed first). 

Or maybe I don’t really understand the Q&A feature and its benefits, since I haven’t used it 🙂 But consider disabling it?

[Lief]

Bumping this subject...I'm getting started on our community, established community converting to Khoros soon, and I don't want to overload the collective with too many ways to talk.

What are the Pro's / Con's of Forums and Q&A?

From my reading on https://community.khoros.com/t5/Forums/About-forums/ta-p/109153 and https://community.khoros.com/t5/Questions-and-Answers/About-Q-amp-A/ta-p/14791 they both appear to have essentially the same features. (question have syndication etc... but...

Is it really just about the point and/or support of the engagement?
Like, does Q&A imply having an "ANSWER" - more designed for community self-support and Forums is more like open conversation/engagement?

If they were both on I could see a lot of mis-attribution (conversation in Q&A and authoritative Q&A in forums).

What, if anything, am I missing?

[StanGromer]

@Lief After using Khoros extensively for over four years, I legitimately can't give you a good answer for what a modern day usage of Q/A would be VS. Forums. I would honestly say just stay clear of Q/A, and stick 100% with forums.

(I also don't think they have pushed a single update to QA since I started using Khoros back in 2017... though I could be wrong... even so that gives you an idea of how much Khoros is actively supporting it!)

[Lief]

Thanks @StanGromer - I'll start with that as my baseline then.