Great in-depth article comparing the uses of Discord (chat software) and Discourse (forum software).
We have a Discord and a Discourse (this forum) for Panzer Dragoon Legacy, but there’s certainly some overlap in how they are used, and I’ve sometimes asked myself if it helps or hinders us having both.
In particular, I liked the comments in the article about the requirement to create a topic being a “barrier to entry” for newcomers, but I also liked that the positives of forum software were highlighted, such as being indexed by search engines, open source, and generally more organised.
Which do you prefer: Discourse or Discord? Or do you like using both, and it depends on the situation?
Maybe someone will come up with a workable hybrid solution one day.
Yeah, I’ve often wondered if I like forums because I’ve been using them for a long time. But looking through the points in the article, and based on my own experience, I think there’s some clear advantages to the forum format in some cases.
I think I just like the static-ness of it if that makes sense. Chat boards can often be chaotic where as I feel forums are pretty consistent structurally.
On my website, we used to have a “chatbox” on the forums. It was very popular for the users that were online at that moment. Now the forums have died down in activity, and our discord has essentially replaced the chatbox. I like forums because they allow you to reference things “forever”. But discord is great for general chatter and getting to know people. Very different feels though. It’s kinda like whatsapp vs email in a way.
We have topics going back to 2003 here. That’s certainly something (hopefully valuable to people).
It’s interesting that you bring up email, because that’s something I seldom use anymore… mainly just for receipts, to reset passwords, etc. Even though this forum can actually be used as a mailing list, there’s something appealing about going out to a website to get information at my own convenience, rather than subscribing to updates.
I found out about a new messaging app today called Quill which features “retroactive threads”. From their website:
Create a thread from any set of messages. It happens all the time, someone said something that should be in its own thread. No sweat — grab any set of messages and roll them up.
It’ll be interesting to see if this threaded chat idea takes off in other messaging apps such as Discord.