Issues are for work that can be finished; questions, ideas and announcements clutter them. Discussions give a repository a forum with threaded replies and votes. gh 29 repo edit --enable-discussions adds six categories: Announcements (only maintainers and admins start threads), General, Ideas, Polls, Q&A (answers can be marked) and Show and tell. Scripts use the GraphQL API (createDiscussion, addDiscussionComment, markDiscussionCommentAsAnswer); Sam posts a newcomer's question, answers it and marks the answer, and it becomes #12, since discussions share the numbering with issues and pull requests:
Move a question that arrives as an issue with Convert to discussion on the issue, and turn a discussion that uncovers a real bug into an issue with Create issue from discussion.