I've been trying to use the discussion site for some time but have grown more and more frustrated with the policy that auto closes Q's after 28 days. This makes it difficult to participate in this community for several reasons.
I regularly come across Q's that I could A'er but they've since locked and you cannot reopen them or leave any breadcrumbs that'll link them to a new Q/A where a Q is re-asked w/ a A'er then added to the 2nd duplicate Q.
Linking to the old Q's is desirable since they're typically already highly ranked in Google so show up higher in the ranks on searches.
I'm a moderator on one of the stackexchange sites and find these to be very off-putting in terms of getting new users to participate.