Discord Chat Feedback

[Num7]

Hi guys,

I've been thinking about the chat for a little while. It seems that most people on Discord are not forum members, and that most members of the forum are not using our Discord chat. That doesn't make sense. 2 crowds in 2 places...

The question is, would you like the old chat back? A chatroom that is on the forum, that only members can use?

Let me know in the poll. All comments and feedback are welcome.

Thanks.

 

[Dalet]

I suppose I'll take the "Dump Discord" position.

As I see it, there are five main problems with the chatroom:

1. It is divisive. As Num7 has already stated, it seems that most of the regular forum posters avoid the Discord, and the Discord posters avoid the forum.

2. It is a redundancy. A chatroom should basically be about... well... chatting. Just informal conversation. But with all the "tabs" and so forth, the Discord chatroom attempts to be a second forum. I say "attempts" because...

3. There is not enough activity there to justify its existence.

4. It is being used to lure members to other sites. I will not expand upon this further, so as not to antagonize those who are doing so.

5. It is used to lampoon the Paranormalis site. Another site (run by a former Paranormalis member) uses exerpts from the chatroom in order to trash Paranormalis.

I encourage all members to vote against the current Discord chat.

 

[Mayhem]

In response.

1. It is divisive. It seems that most of the regular forum posters avoid the Discord, and the Discord posters avoid the forum.

Their choice, it may not transfer to a "chatbox" that brings them all together.

2. It is a redundancy. A chatroom should basically be about... well... chatting. Just informal conversation. But with all the "tabs" and so forth, the Discord chatroom attempts to be a second forum. I say "attempts" because...

Discord is an interactive environment which a traditional chatbox cannot provide.
Discord is not a chatbox which you cant seem to understand.
Younger people wont be starting threads to post pics and videos.

3. There is not enough activity there to justify its existence.
Again your opinion, what constitutes enough activity?

4. It is being used to lure members to other sites. I will not expand upon this further, so as not to antagonize those who are doing so.

Some examples please?


5. It is used to lampoon the Paranormalis site. Another site (run by a former Paranormalis member) uses exerpts from the chatroom in order to trash Paranormalis.

Some examples please?

 

[Dalet]

In response.

1. It is divisive. It seems that most of the regular forum posters avoid the Discord, and the Discord posters avoid the forum.

Their choice, it may not transfer to a "chatbox" that brings them all together.

2. It is a redundancy. A chatroom should basically be about... well... chatting. Just informal conversation. But with all the "tabs" and so forth, the Discord chatroom attempts to be a second forum. I say "attempts" because...

Discord is an interactive environment which a traditional chatbox cannot provide.
Discord is not a chatbox which you cant seem to understand.
Younger people wont be starting threads to post pics and videos.

3. There is not enough activity there to justify its existence.
Again your opinion, what constitutes enough activity?

4. It is being used to lure members to other sites. I will not expand upon this further, so as not to antagonize those who are doing so.

Some examples please?


5. It is used to lampoon the Paranormalis site. Another site (run by a former Paranormalis member) uses exerpts from the chatroom in order to trash Paranormalis.

Some examples please?

I'll disregard the first three of your responses because, frankly, I don't understand what you're talking about.

As for number four: I have already stated that I am not going to antagonize certain individuals by naming those who have used the Paranormalis Discord to populate their own petty little internet kingdoms.

As for number five, see Para~Troll Of The Week 2019.

 

[Apri1]

I voted keep the discord. I fail to see why a rudimentary simple chat hacked together quickly is somehow superior to discord, which is a service dedicated to providing chat servers. I already use discord quite a lot, so adding para in there is easy. If it closed and a chat here was added, I almost certainly wouldn't frequent it, let alone use it.

The forum is not a good replacement for live chat (whether that be voice or text).

I'll address the "concerns" about discord:

"1. It is divisive. As Num7 has already stated, it seems that most of the regular forum posters avoid the Discord, and the Discord posters avoid the forum."

I see this as the fault of the forum-only users. Myself and other discord users also use the forum; in the way forums are meant to be used. We don't use it as a chat service, but why would we? So really there's a discord group that visits the forum, and the forum group which doesn't visit the discord. Generally speaking, it's much easier to keep tabs on para if it's just in a discord server list along with everything else, rather than having to explicitly visit the site every single day.

"2. It is a redundancy. A chatroom should basically be about... well... chatting. Just informal conversation. But with all the "tabs" and so forth, the Discord chatroom attempts to be a second forum. I say "attempts" because..."

I'd argue "watercooler chat" has no place at all in either a paranormalis chatroom or on the forum. I don't come here for casual chitchat and shallow pleasantries. I come because of the topics on here. If all the chat was was unrelated and off topic, I wouldn't use it. As for the "tabs", I assume you mean channels. Yes, because in 2019 we are actually organized. You could make the same argument about the forum. Certainly there are a lot of subforums here that aren't used or posted in very infrequently? Why not just have a handful of main ones? Same argument. Except chat has a reason for them: because when discussions are happening, things can branch off and it's easier to move channels than to try to have two conversations in the same space.

Creating an inferior chatroom hosted on the site would be redundancy. Why would I use that when I could just use discord? There's no reason other than to create problems. I don't "chat" on the forum, and I don't do forum-style longposts in the discord chatroom. Perhaps learn how to use communication technology? Are you 80 or something?

3. There is not enough activity there to justify its existence.

Generally speaking I see more activity on the discord chatroom than I do here on the forum. If that's not enough activity to justify it's existence.... why does this site exist? If you created a dedicated chatroom here on the site you'd have even less activity, because many discord users wouldn't bother. What reason do you have to believe that a migration would increase activity? Generally server/site/chat moves lose users in the switch. I watched it happen with another chat I used to frequent. They had a discord server and lots of people enjoyed it, then they moved to a dedicated chat hosted on their site and it pretty much died and no one bothered to continue chatting. History shows that migrations hurt activity.

4. It is being used to lure members to other sites. I will not expand upon this further, so as not to antagonize those who are doing so.

To my knowledge there's only paranormalis. I don't really know of any other forums that cover these kinds of topics. Perhaps you meant discord servers? If so it's as simple as putting a rule of no advertising other servers. If you actually bothered to use discord you'd see such a thing is pretty common. Servers also often do "partnerships" where para could advertise on related servers and gain more users in that way. A dedicated chat yet again fails to do this kind of thing.

5. It is used to lampoon the Paranormalis site. Another site (run by a former Paranormalis member) uses exerpts from the chatroom in order to trash Paranormalis.

certainly they could use the excerpts in the dedicated chatroom or here on the forum in order to trash paranormalis? I'm failing to see why discord is unique in that manner. It just sounds like you have a bias against discord for no real reason.

Needless to say that all of the evidence points towards a chat migration being a bad move. What arguments are there for a dedicated chat? Will it have voice? Sharing images/videos/etc? Private messaging? Will it use markdown formatting? Will it have dedicated channels for different topics? If not, in what way is it superior? What is so good that a loss of users and functionality is worth it?

 

[MeditationSync]

My 2 cents is that I would probably never use the chat nearly as frequently if at all if it was based inside the forum here.

Discord is polished, easy, compact & most importantly just more convenient than any web site based chat I've ever had the chance to use.

It also offers voice & video chat, as well as the ability to post images and links,.all in an easy to use platform.

I'm of the thought that the days of web site based chat are pretty much a lost cause.

Discord is the flavor of the day.

Nice to see you asking opinions on this Num.

Hope everyone is well

 

[Dalet]

It would seem that the "fix" is in.

I voted keep the discord. I fail to see why a rudimentary simple chat hacked together quickly is somehow superior to discord, which is a service dedicated to providing chat servers. I already use discord quite a lot, so adding para in there is easy. If it closed and a chat here was added, I almost certainly wouldn't frequent it, let alone use it.

The forum is not a good replacement for live chat (whether that be voice or text).

I'll address the "concerns" about discord:



I see this as the fault of the forum-only users. Myself and other discord users also use the forum; in the way forums are meant to be used. We don't use it as a chat service, but why would we? So really there's a discord group that visits the forum, and the forum group which doesn't visit the discord. Generally speaking, it's much easier to keep tabs on para if it's just in a discord server list along with everything else, rather than having to explicitly visit the site every single day.



I'd argue "watercooler chat" has no place at all in either a paranormalis chatroom or on the forum. I don't come here for casual chitchat and shallow pleasantries. I come because of the topics on here. If all the chat was was unrelated and off topic, I wouldn't use it. As for the "tabs", I assume you mean channels. Yes, because in 2019 we are actually organized. You could make the same argument about the forum. Certainly there are a lot of subforums here that aren't used or posted in very infrequently? Why not just have a handful of main ones? Same argument. Except chat has a reason for them: because when discussions are happening, things can branch off and it's easier to move channels than to try to have two conversations in the same space.

Creating an inferior chatroom hosted on the site would be redundancy. Why would I use that when I could just use discord? There's no reason other than to create problems. I don't "chat" on the forum, and I don't do forum-style longposts in the discord chatroom. Perhaps learn how to use communication technology? Are you 80 or something?



Generally speaking I see more activity on the discord chatroom than I do here on the forum. If that's not enough activity to justify it's existence.... why does this site exist? If you created a dedicated chatroom here on the site you'd have even less activity, because many discord users wouldn't bother. What reason do you have to believe that a migration would increase activity? Generally server/site/chat moves lose users in the switch. I watched it happen with another chat I used to frequent. They had a discord server and lots of people enjoyed it, then they moved to a dedicated chat hosted on their site and it pretty much died and no one bothered to continue chatting. History shows that migrations hurt activity.



To my knowledge there's only paranormalis. I don't really know of any other forums that cover these kinds of topics. Perhaps you meant discord servers? If so it's as simple as putting a rule of no advertising other servers. If you actually bothered to use discord you'd see such a thing is pretty common. Servers also often do "partnerships" where para could advertise on related servers and gain more users in that way. A dedicated chat yet again fails to do this kind of thing.



certainly they could use the excerpts in the dedicated chatroom or here on the forum in order to trash paranormalis? I'm failing to see why discord is unique in that manner. It just sounds like you have a bias against discord for no real reason.

Needless to say that all of the evidence points towards a chat migration being a bad move. What arguments are there for a dedicated chat? Will it have voice? Sharing images/videos/etc? Private messaging? Will it use markdown formatting? Will it have dedicated channels for different topics? If not, in what way is it superior? What is so good that a loss of users and functionality is worth it?

Apri1, that was a very articulate response. Not a very convincing one (at least, to me) but very well stated. It might have been a bit better, if not for the ad hominem statements concerning my age or ability to communicate. There's no need for that here.. (This isn't the chatroom, after all.) It's all a matter of opinion. You have yours. I have mine.

Also, to be honest, I don't favor an in-house chat, either. Personally, I think we can do without it altogether.

 

[Dalet]

Interesting post at the site which is lampooning our current chatroom. Two excerpts:

Excerpt 1.

"I have access to the chat room no matter if it's on Discord or the Paradumbass forum. Have you people learned nothing yet?"

Funny, I seem to have seen this argument somewhere before. Perhaps it's because...

Excerpt 2.

"I am currently 35 members over there on Paradumbass forum. Most I let just sit there until they're needed for action."

 

[Kairos]

In my experience, Discord is really a kind of forum. People post in there sporadically no differently than a forum, with conversations carried on over the course of days.

A true chat room times out rather quickly in order to impose realtime chat. Discord is really a forum.

 

[Einstein]

Discord is a dead zone which happens to be privately compartmentalized. In an effort to keep any dangerous truth out of the public's eye. Also I don't like the tracking software that is installed on my computer by the discord server.