A system designed to experience graceful degradation, or to fail soft (used in computing, similar to "fail safe"[13]) operates at a reduced level of performance after some component fails. For example, if grid power fails, a building may operate lighting at reduced levels or elevators at reduced speeds. In computing, if insufficient network bandwidth is available to stream an online video, a lower-resolution version might be streamed in place of the high-resolution version. Progressive enhancement is another example, where web pages are available in a basic functional format for older, small-screen, or limited-capability web browsers, but in an enhanced version for browsers capable of handling additional technologies or that have a larger display.
It took off because searching a specific issue is likely to give you a good and comprehensive answer back with minimal effort, so it kept being ranked well in search engines.
Other less "pedantic" forums are great for discussion and they encourage new questions, but they don't perform nearly as well for people searching for the answers or the context they're looking for: there's too much noise in the discussion and answers are often scattered in multiple topics.
I drink it every day but I'm not addicted. I can stop it at any time, ok??