I’d have to agree that using the Discord Server has had an effect on the Forums here.

I remember in the pre Wayland days that the guys often reminded folks NOT to post only in the Discord but to use the Forums and Project System.

I’ve not used Discord in awhile on my computer, as I can’t stand the constant ‘DING’ of notices and when I shut it down it seems to crash and muck up my PC some how.

Maybe I’ll have to fire it up again and see if it’s still misbehaving.

Too bad the ‘OTT Tech Wizards’ can’t write some glorious CODE that would bring written words from  Discord straight into the Forums here.  BUT, I’m sure that they would need to sacrifice several PC parts, two chickens, burn copies of code books, dance a forbidden jig  while wearing 80’s spandex and chanting the theme of the CoG initiation ceremony!  ??    If this happens, I smell Pay per view!!!

I have to agree with @timchubb on this one. Different tools for different purposes.

For me, the Discord server has never really taken away from the forums as I never really used the forums. I never really had/made the time to check in on them and keep up with discussion. I am making more of an effort now as I have been in the hobby longer than when I just started and joined up here and I am finding more of interest but that is by the by.

Discord is something that I leave open to one side whilst I work (Software Consultancy so I spend my days in a home office in front of computers) where it provides background chatter to ease my way through the day.

From the discussion I have seen since this was brought up on CoG radio, I wonder if this puts my in a minority.

Discord and the forums might have different uses but it is inevitable that in relatively small communities like this it is going to fragment things.

@templar007 I have the same annoyance with the ‘dings’, but if you do get back into Discord then you can right click on the OTT server button on the left hand side and select ‘mute server’. This basically turns off all audio cues from that server. Makes things a little quieter. 😛

I think I have one additional point on why the forums are on a decline at times: they are not seen.

Yes, there is a “Forums” button on top but nobody looks at those. You need to scroll down 3 screens worth of content to so the latest forum entries. Maybe pull those a bit more upwards? Or do a news-ticker-scrolling-text with links to the Forum threads?

What I like about a forum format is discussion permanence.

on Discord, things go by quickly as it’s live chat, so you can easily miss a good topic, unless you scroll up 200+ messages sometimes after only an hour. Different channels is good, but there’s still several conversations that fit in one section so it’s still a lot in one place. That and @panzerkaput clogs it up in three channels with his updates 😉

Forums will always be a draw for me, though I use the discord a lot (and have two others there I use quite a bit, and group conversations etc), but the BoW one isn’t very busy compared to others I can frequent instead (Dakka for instance), though generally a lot better sampling of people.

A little while back, @warzan was asking the community how to handle having so many “channels” of communication – forum posts, DMs, Twitter, Facebook, emails, even old-school texting…. and then added Discord into the mix!

As @timchubb points out, forums and Discord are not mutually exclusive. But we can’t ignore the lived experience of watching forum posts go down, quite noticeably, since the introduction of Discord. And maybe the forums were just filled with “chatter” that has moved onto the Discord platform – but it’s undeniable that traffic has moved from the forums to Discord. The two may not be mutually exclusive; but the way they’re being used by members is treating them as if they are (“I won’t post that on the forum, as quite a few of us were already chatting about that on Discord, and who wants to read all that rubbish again?”)

Personally, I wouldn’t miss the Discord server if it disappeared, but I’ve certainly missed the forum activity in the last six months or so. @sundancer has put a lot of work into keeping the conversation going on the forum but I felt like even that was becoming a bit “clique-y” as it was the same half-a-dozen or so of us responding, which kind of put me off replying too often too – and as other members appear to have felt the same, the conversation on the forums slowly died away.

“Use it or lose it” seems to be the order of the day here.

The way to keep the forums alive and filled with chatter is to…. well, join in and fill them with chatter!

Everyone to date who has celebrated the Discord channels points out that they keep the channel open during the day (as work arrangements allow for this) and have it on as “background noise”. Which is fine. For everyone who is able to do this. For the rest of us, it’s easy to feel “left out” and not want to join in with an established conversation (since it’s hard to find out where in the conversation you’re jumping in).

But it feels like we’re just repeating conversations already had.

I guess the question this kind of thread really brings up is *where* is our community?