New Warhorn Media post by Nathan Alberson:
I really need to get over to that Discord at some point. If only the Discord weren’t on Discord…
What’s wrong with discord?
Among other things, it’s queerer than a $3 bill. I was considering starting a Discord server before we settled on Discourse for this site. I just remember them shoving LGBTQ+IA stuff down your throat just to create an account. I couldn’t bear the thought of asking people to create an account and agree to that kind of crap in order to join a group of people opposed to that.
Also, I didn’t want to get summarily kicked off one day. “Own your platform” is a worthless rule that’s easy to ignore. There’s little benefit at all to following that rule… until it’s the only rule that matters.
Indeed, there’s that whole aspect. But mainly I’m just a forum guy. I like that I can catch up here on the weekends, read multi-paragraph comments, reply days or weeks later without disrupting anything. Discord discussion feels time-sensitive or ephemeral. It also feels light and fun, to be fair to it.
Professionally, I’m in programming language and library Discords and I really hate it because everyone’s helpful answers get lost, so the helpful people have to repeat themselves and that burns them out. It also trains users to ask at the last second and expect immediate replies.
Forums forever!