Reply To: OnTableTop needs a forum – A discussion thread

[jamescutts 6925xp 1]

I’ve been considering if I should jump back into this discussion, theres some intresting points being raised but also some very concerning ones.

I think Discord  is being used as a bit of a scapegoat here, and directing the focus away from improving the forumns.

Has the community “Split”, yes and no. I think discord has opened up a new communication medium for members of the community to engage with each other. Have some members who used to use the forums become less active on them and more in discord, yes most likely. Is that a bad, no not really, its a communication tool but in a different format to a forum, was introducing the project system a bad thing? Some people might think so, others love it. If you look at discord the discussions are “chatty”, short sweet, not very in depth (that often) and quite sporadic, it suits the medium and may have also cleared up some of the forum from such nonsense.

The stat counting is also misleading, sure there’s 950 members, how many of those joined just to listen into cog radio once in a while and after that have no participation. 26 active members is probably right, it varies over time depending on the day of the week but to say that isn’t a community is straight up elitist and the sort of comment that does split a community.

Equally I dont know where the idea that Discord becomes/has become the community is coming from it doesn’t seem to have steered the OTT gang which are the cornerstone of our community any more or less that the forums, there’s nobody saying you have to use it.

The new and old grognard point is interesting, I remember being put off from the forums for a long time for a lot of the issues sundancer has raised, equally forums can be a daunting intro for some. Actually i dont think OTT links to or promotes the discord anywhere? There’s also a lot of reasons why people use one tool more that the other, I tend to find i spent a lot of time writing forums posts (crikey this got long quick), while i can quickly jump into discord for 5min in between work, similarly some people only have a limited time to interact and a slower format suits them.

As for time limiting discord thats a sure fire way to annoy that part of the community (it can work in specific cases as mentioned), after all beasts of war is global, i don’t think anyone has ever suggested limiting the forum. I for one would probably drop the cog membership and go elsewhere.

The two can live together in harmony, much like the project system and even the growing number of people making their own content on twitch/youtube. Plenty of cases to this point.

• The new Bolt action starter was posted in discord, people quickly gave it a thumbs up/down passed a few comments, that all happened before the news article was posted in a matter of a few min, does it take away from the news article, no. Should it have been a forumn post, yes it could have been but that instant chat wouldnt have happened for those who want it, doens’t mean it cant be both.
• We’ve had several chats in discord that we’ve gone, hang on a min this would make a good forum post and then somebody has gone away and created a forum post. A great way of how the two tools can interact, turing those quick chats into wider discussions.
• Share your projects, basically WAYPAN on discord, it works about as well in the speed it goes by.
• Project posts, yes they could be a forum topic, they really dont work on discord, but you can share a link to the project as part of a discussion on discord, somebody mentions WWII Swiss, post a link to your project on them.
• The Unoffical hobby hangout, its another show run by the community, you can join it live wathc the recording or not at all, its posted on the forums and discord for those interested, and various outher people creating content.
• Theres also the CoG radio, and Piratate CoG run CoG radio, which while on discord as a tool for voice chat doesnt require you to interact with discord other than listen in or if you want talk away. Its a whole new medium for the comminity to interact, it isnt recorded which means its at the time but equally its just a few people chatting nonsense, much like any podcast and the tools are there for people to do the same anytime they like but its within the OTT bubble rather than another community.
• This topic, great example of a more indepth discussion that doesnt work well on discord.

I think what I’m trying to say is, avoid this mindset of “better”/”one or the other”/”the enemy” and focus more on the benefits and interactions that having several mediums can bring to the community as a whole. We’ve got some new tools and ways of communicating, and theres going to be a lot more changes i suspect over the coming years as technology progresses. Sure some people will stay in one bubble and thats totally fine but like any ven digram theres that point of cross over and that is where our community is the strongest. And by that I dont mean you need to be in both, just that the the two can support and complement each other.

I’d love to see the forums get better tooling in many of the ways sundancer and the rest of this topic has pointed out, as warzan has pointed out theres challenges, they have the current approach sitewide to improve performance and im sure all thise points will be taken onboard for anything that comes down the line.

 

* disclaimer I’m one of the “more” active discord users, I’ve also been trying to become more active on the forums.