Home › Forums › COG – Green Room › OnTableTop needs a forum – A discussion thread › Reply To: OnTableTop needs a forum – A discussion thread
with most of the “grognards”/CoGs and probably the main contributors using Discord and the more casual and newer members using the forums.
I honestly don’t know what concerns me more about this comment – how dismissive it is is of non-Discord users or how dismissive it is of the importance of new or “casual” members. As though neither is worthy of valuing. I’m sure that’s not how you intended it to come across but that’s how it can read.
The Discord currently has around about 950 members. Since the 27th of April (48 hours plus a little) on the main channel (Cogsanctuary) there have been, including two members of the OTT staff, 26 active chatters. 26. That covers over 425+ messages,includes several users who only posted one comment, and represents <3% of the server members. That’s not a community, that’s a snap shot of an echo chamber.
No one in this thread has suggested getting rid of Discord, they are just asking for a little investment in improving their experience of the community. There are several members here who dislike Discord, a few of whom have been around since the invention of the computer. At the moment that makes them second class citizens. It’s also pretty clear no one is expecting a return to how active the forums used to be or being the “main focus” as you put it. To dismiss those people as not a real contributing part of the community is how communities die. Can you imagine if we said “let’s not improve the projects system because there is a Share-your-projects channel on Discord”? Hyperbolic? Sure but it still highlights the daftness of the “just embrace Discord or not be a valued member of the community” theme.
As for the forums being for new users or casuals (a horrible term but hey, common enough amongst gamers), if it is true, that’s even more reason to improve them. Any community manager will tell you that getting in new members is as important as keeping the high engagement users happy. If you aren’t growing the community, making it appealing to new people and making those people want to deepen their engagement, you are wasting your time. They should be able to see why they want to be here, to sign up as COGs and not just go somewhere else.
I dunno. I just find the idea that it is “too late” so defeatist. If improvement is possible, why shouldn’t we try. Otherwise we may as well just let the 3% people chatting in a closed system be the community.
