Unfortunately, Tech Crunch labels Stack Exchange as a 'forum'. It's not.
A Forum is for hanging out and sharing. It may have information you need, it may not. You will spend a lot of time scrolling through useless material finding it. Or even worse: http://xkcd.com/979/
Stack Exchange will not waste your time. You have a much higher chance to find the answer you're looking for.
In short, while Forums and Stack Exchange are avenues to convey information, SE works to ensure finding information is easy and painless, whereas a forum does not.
There are multiple definitions for forum. The standard Internet definition is indeed "hang out, post lots of BS, troll newbs" - but the broader definition is simply "a venue for exchanging ideas", and SE certainly fits that.
We don't like to call it a forum, precisely because it brings to mind the former. But the latter (older) definition is perfectly applicable.
(I'm an employee of Stack Exchange, working in the "annoy gortok with pedantry" department)
> SE works to ensure finding information is easy and painless, whereas a forum does not.
SE is trying to create create technical manuals one extremely directed question and one specific answer at a time. There is nothing wrong with discussion around questions or topics, especially if it helps to clarify anything being discussed. It seems like the moderators think there is only one way to ask or question a topic, whereas in reality people learn in different ways. Having multiple discussion points is helpful, the cream will rise to the top with votes. Duplicates shouldn't be closed either, there is value in seeing the same question answered in a different manner especially when both answers are correct. SO and SE has gotten so bad it's my last resort these days, I turn to Reddit before asking questions there and that is embarrassing to say.
A Forum is for hanging out and sharing. It may have information you need, it may not. You will spend a lot of time scrolling through useless material finding it. Or even worse: http://xkcd.com/979/
Stack Exchange will not waste your time. You have a much higher chance to find the answer you're looking for.
In short, while Forums and Stack Exchange are avenues to convey information, SE works to ensure finding information is easy and painless, whereas a forum does not.
(I'm a moderator on Stack Overflow).