Stackexchange: Highly preferred among the four choices listed. Works especially well where there is a clearly constrained question that could actually be answered in a constructive way. Several of the research questions in the original post might get constructive answers if posed there.
Lesswrong: Good for open-ended discussion, of a highly critical nature—community standards expect a certain level of rigour.
Quora: I’ve never used it so I don’t have any comments there.
Researchgate: I have a research profile with my CV on it, and all the publications I am allowed to distribute. But I find that the Q&A section in my field is mainly something like “I need a specific kind of resource, can anyone help me find it?”, and often answered in uninformative or useless ways (e.g. “here is a vaguely related paper, go read it and see”), by people who just seem to like answering questions (cf Yahoo answers and all of its ilk). Very handy for keeping up with new publications (not paywalled) from people whose research I follow.
Stackexchange: Highly preferred among the four choices listed. Works especially well where there is a clearly constrained question that could actually be answered in a constructive way. Several of the research questions in the original post might get constructive answers if posed there.
Lesswrong: Good for open-ended discussion, of a highly critical nature—community standards expect a certain level of rigour.
Quora: I’ve never used it so I don’t have any comments there.
Researchgate: I have a research profile with my CV on it, and all the publications I am allowed to distribute. But I find that the Q&A section in my field is mainly something like “I need a specific kind of resource, can anyone help me find it?”, and often answered in uninformative or useless ways (e.g. “here is a vaguely related paper, go read it and see”), by people who just seem to like answering questions (cf Yahoo answers and all of its ilk). Very handy for keeping up with new publications (not paywalled) from people whose research I follow.