Is Discord killing forums?

[Bryn]

It's a neverending argument that social media as a whole is slowly suffocating the concept of forums but now, there's something else... a thing called Discord. For those that don't know or not aware, it's an instant messaging client similar to Skype which was primarily used for gamers but now can be used for anyone and even though it had only been around a short time, it's massively popular.

But there's now a pandemic of people having a dedicated Discord server for their own forum and in the process, the forum itself will die in a matter of months. This has happened before for a few communites out there and it's a shame, especially when the forum itself was popular in the past. An example would be one forum I used to frequent a lot and with one of its users having complained of it killing said forum which had resulted in very little or no activity in it. One of my members had suggested a Discord server for my forum and I quickly gave him a big fat "no", because I don't want the same thing happening to mine either. Besides, I don't give a toss about Discord these days even though I used it myself. I prefer forums as a means of communication.

So, do any of you agree with this? Let's talk about it.

 

[Kaynil]

This is interesting, as I thought discord could serve to do the opposite, pulling people interested in discussing your topic niche. As a matter of fact, I do know of a friend who closed her forum because she was getting a lot more activity in her discord server. I can definitely see why many would feel that way about discord.

However, leaving aside for a moment the creation of specific servers for a community, I think it kind of makes sense, as discord can make a forum feel redundant the more areas, roles and events it has and you can just talk about what's on your mind straight away. Members can join and leave easily without having to register again on each server. No wonder it's becoming more attractive for people to have a server rather than a full community. Discord allows for categories, roles and as many text channels as you need. You can upload and link to media easily and you have the added benefit of easily calling other people.

I think discord has taken what worked in older chatrooms with groups since back in the IRC days with the technology of current IM apps, it made it widely available. It is way easier nowadays to convince someone to get discord and join your server than to register an account in your forum and use the browser to navigate there.

Forums have been on the decline for a while, the world hopped into the internet and has shifted to mobile browsing and communities have been slow and niche while apps favour quick access and tools to do things at the moment and get instant gratification. Despite this, I think they will always have a cult following. Also, there are forum scripts trying to adapt and make things easier for the forum owners and the members.

In my case, I like the archive and organisation aspect of it as well as being able to go typing for long without hogging the spotlight, in chat applications wall of texts are a big no-no so people tend to answer short and not go in depth. I've made plenty of memories and I find cool to read interesting threads. Reading archives in chats, even in discord way too convoluted.

 

[Page]

Members can join and leave easily without having to register again on each server.

You can program it with an bot to not do that, like link the site to discord and they need to be an member of the site to able to join discord. Also if an topic/post gets posted the feed goes into discord..

ere are forum scripts trying to adapt and make things easier for the forum owners and the members.

IPS is always dealing with this and making the change 🙂 it's just down the each site owners to add it.

Then those with discord as you know, getting people to join and stay is just as hard now,

 

[Kaynil]

You can program it with a bot to not do that, like link the site to discord and they need to be a member of the site to able to join discord. Also if a topic/post gets posted the feed goes into discord.

I was talking more in general, although it's good to know about this function you can find in some discord bots. I actually think adding that restriction would actually hurt the server more to help it unless you really have a big or really active community since such a restriction will alienate anyone from finding your discord and some might find it cumbersome and not want to bother when they are many other servers that won't do that.

However, I must say I used to be a member of another discord server that did the opposite, they made it so you needed a discord account to join the forum and then joining the community was basically a click, kind of like facebook. Now, that kind of thing I really like, because I feel that this is making it easier for the user rather than creating artificial obstacles.

In the end, like I said, I guess it really depends on the purpose of your discord. If you think it can thrive just with your members and have it as a private chat and it is actually great to know that such tools are available. In my case, I am trying to connect with more potential new members so more than restricting entry I need to figure out ways to make the guests that stumble into my discord to feel compelled to check the community and join.

Regarding the feed, I've seen it (mostly to notify updates) but I haven't implemented it because I worry that people would just ignore the text channel assigned to that and, since the amount of activity I have is very low, leaving it in a normal chat channel would probably make awkward to chat. Still, like I said, it is good to see that there can be ways to link the forum. Probably the feed thing is just about how often and how to make it attractive and interactive for the members of discord.

IPS is always dealing with this and making the change 🙂 it's just down the each site owners to add it.

Then those with discord as you know, getting people to join and stay is just as hard now,

IPS as Invision Power Services? That's pretty cool. I assume the more common the more tools we will be getting in different software. I know that there has been people trying to make it possible to embed discord in their communities before. Like Titan discord. I am hoping the same discord team keep bringing tools to close the gap with webs more in the following years.

 

[Carlos X]

No. It actually compliments your forum. I don't care for discord, but a lot of gamers do like it.

 

[Page]

IPS as Invision Power Services? That's pretty cool. I assume the more common the more tools we will be getting in different software. I know that there has been people trying to make it possible to embed discord in their communities before. Like Titan discord. I am hoping the same discord team keep bringing tools to close the gap with webs more in the following years.

Discord Integration is the name! If you looked it up on the IPB marketplace you will find the answer and the details on what that plugin does. I like to mention that it my idea to have that plugin made 😉 If I didn't created an topic under request, there wouldn't be discord integration.

However, I must say I used to be a member of another discord server that did the opposite, they made it so you needed a discord account to join the forum and then joining the community was basically a click, kind of like facebook. Now, that kind of thing I really like, because I feel that this is making it easier for the user rather than creating artificial obstacles.

How would that make the forum bigger? I mean there are allot of my members that are not interested in joining discord server. Would be the same if the discord members aren't interested in joining the site. Then there is promotion and getting traffic and members to the server.

No. It actually compliments your forum. I don't care for discord, but a lot of gamers do like it.

Discord is like another version of teamspeak 3 or other platforms like ventrilo and Skype. It's ways of getting people together and speak. Discord is allot popular for chat channels rather then voice channels and it's free

 

[Kaynil]

Discord Integration is the name! If you looked it up on the IPB marketplace you will find the answer and the details on what that plugin does. I like to mention that it my idea to have that plugin made 😉 If I didn't created an topic under request, there wouldn't be discord integration.

Ooh, that's pretty cool. I am glad your request now can help so many more people. Thumbs up.

How would that make the forum bigger? I mean there are allot of my members that are not interested in joining discord server. Would be the same if the discord members aren't interested in joining the site. Then there is promotion and getting traffic and members to the server.

Yes. You're right. I decant my statement. It made registering easier in itself for members already with a discord account but it is the same obstacle as the inversed situation for people not caring about discord at all. Still a needless convolution and as a forum owner it would make it worse by having discord be the portal and by that nature their first stop. I actually cringed rereading what I said. Hah!

I think I was going by the idea of that if it was to work like the facebook plugin does in xenforo. That is something I would definitely like now that Discord is becoming so popular. Being able to link your account either by registration or after.

Either way, I remain hopeful that it is possible to make them work with some planning, which is what I need to do in my community. I started my guild before I understood well what I was doing I want to link activities and entice people to check the forums more. If I cab come with something good, I'll let you know.

 

[Carlos X]

How would that make the forum bigger? I mean there are allot of my members that are not interested in joining discord server. Would be the same if the discord members aren't interested in joining the site. Then there is promotion and getting traffic and members to the server.

Convenience. I've seen a lot of gaming sites with discords being linked, or integrated into the site. Thing is, it's one less plugin to install, or people want a discord for the site. You still gotta install it as a plugin if you want it to be "integrated" into your site, or a template edit can display the chatbox for you. But no, it doesn't kill your site, it actually makes your site more inclusive. To make the forum bigger from a discord channel, you have to go to a channel that's popular. This is how ResetEra got popular before the launch of the site itself. NeoGAF is so popular, it has a few channels of its own. If you go in there, and throw a link in there for example, you'll have thousands of eyeballs. Which is really, what you want.

 

[Marc]

Convenience. I've seen a lot of gaming sites with discords being linked, or integrated into the site. Thing is, it's one less plugin to install, or people want a discord for the site. You still gotta install it as a plugin if you want it to be "integrated" into your site, or a template edit can display the chatbox for you. But no, it doesn't kill your site, it actually makes your site more inclusive. To make the forum bigger from a discord channel, you have to go to a channel that's popular. This is how ResetEra got popular before the launch of the site itself. NeoGAF is so popular, it has a few channels of its own. If you go in there, and throw a link in there for example, you'll have thousands of eyeballs. Which is really, what you want.

And what happens when people do the same to your own discord? Your small community will go to a different community with more activity and in the end, your site may end up a ghost town.

Do you have any active sites to show us as an example of your method working for small forums?

Most servers I know warn/ban people for posting links or sending out discord invites.

 

[Bryn]

I don't care for discord, but a lot of gamers do like it.

That's because it was made for the gamers in the first place until suddently, everyone in their hundreds from all walks of life started using it.

 

[Page]

Most servers I know warn/ban people for posting links or sending out discord invites.

Same! and I don't allow it on my servers, There is nothing stopping them private messaging the members, I just rather not keep seeing links in the channels

But no, it doesn't kill your site, it actually makes your site more inclusive. To make the forum bigger from a discord channel, you have to go to a channel that's popular.

Keep in mind that discord server can be also small! Some may get members from joining the site first or other way around.

it has a few channels of its own

what do you mean by that? sounds like he visited an discord server that he doesn't run?

 

[Marc]

Most servers I know warn/ban people for posting links or sending out discord invites.

Same! and I don't allow it on my servers, There is nothing stopping them private messaging the members, I just rather not keep seeing links in the channels

It's also a simple right-click and option select to invite them to a specific server. I know people who spam invites that way.

 

[Page]

It's also a simple right-click and option select to invite them to a specific server. I know people who spam invites that way.

Members do that allot, that's something that most staff/owners can't be aware off. But be cool to have an option to disable that

 

[Carlos X]

Do you have any active sites to show us as an example of your method working for small forums?

I mentioned it. ResetEra is a brand new forum, that took advantage of the [recent] NeoGAF scandal. I read they have a few Discords moderated by different people. All of them are "invite only" but in reality are popular enough to warrant their servers. Otherwise ResetEra wouldn't have grown like it has. There are other [back]links going there, but in general, Discords were where they got their influx of users. (Google it, I am not going to link to them because I don't want to give ResetEra an ego stroke knowing they got people talking.)

Most servers I know warn/ban people for posting links or sending out discord invites.

Good, but some are easy to slide in, and post a link. Within' their rules, though.

 

[Marc]

Do you have any active sites to show us as an example of your method working for small forums?

I mentioned it. ResetEra is a brand new forum, that took advantage of the [recent] NeoGAF scandal. I read they have a few Discords moderated by different people. All of them are "invite only" but in reality are popular enough to warrant their servers. Otherwise ResetEra wouldn't have grown like it has. There are other [back]links going there, but in general, Discords were where they got their influx of users. (Google it, I am not going to link to them because I don't want to give ResetEra an ego stroke knowing they got people talking.)

1. I wanted to know about your experience with your sites.
2. You can't "kill" something that did not exist. They had a very active discord community before the site launched, according to what you said. If we buy ads on discord servers within our site's topic, we'll likely get traffic rolling.
3. I said small forums. The example you mentioned did not even exist at the time and it sounds like how they promoted their discord was by spamming invites to everyone they could do it too. That's no different than signing up on competitor forums and sending out mass PMs to members to invite them to your site.

Slipping in links within a server's rules to advertise your site requires work and time. I doubt it will achieve the same results.

 

[Carlos X]

Do you have any active sites to show us as an example of your method working for small forums?

I mentioned it. ResetEra is a brand new forum, that took advantage of the [recent] NeoGAF scandal. I read they have a few Discords moderated by different people. All of them are "invite only" but in reality are popular enough to warrant their servers. Otherwise ResetEra wouldn't have grown like it has. There are other [back]links going there, but in general, Discords were where they got their influx of users. (Google it, I am not going to link to them because I don't want to give ResetEra an ego stroke knowing they got people talking.)

1. I wanted to know about your experience with your sites.
2. You can't "kill" something that did not exist. They had a very active discord community before the site launched, according to what you said. If we buy ads on discord servers within our site's topic, we'll likely get traffic rolling.
3. I said small forums. The example you mentioned did not even exist at the time and it sounds like how they promoted their discord was by spamming invites to everyone they could do it too. That's no different than signing up on competitor forums and sending out mass PMs to members to invite them to your site.

Slipping in links within a server's rules to advertise your site requires work and time. I doubt it will achieve the same results.

Fine, don't listen to me. NeoGAF has a few discord servers that were popular, and it [resetera] gets mentioned over and over again. How do you think 37k members got there? I wish I had growth like that. I would stop buying "dead" forums today if that was so easy. They [ResetEra] had it easy, the owners of ResetEra didn't have their own discords, they were moderators for NeoGAF, and moderators themselves on the discords. That's why it was easy to make an exodus like they did.

This is their stats now:

40,354 Threads
7,709,386 Posts
37,982 Members

In 6 months (release date was October 25, 2017), can YOU do that? No.

Their wiki even mentions that Discord is how they organized the exodus...

 

[Bryn]

Now, although I said in my first post that I'd never get a Discord for a forum, I did make the decision just recently with my new one - but only as the replacement of a shoutbox (because I don't like how Jcink handles it) and that the IRC Live Chat I had was barely used. I've also sent the invite to all my members as a mass alert rather than publicly posting it so, I should be okay about my forum not going to suffer from low activity because of it. Then again, that invite was to expire after a day but I can always send out another to anyone if they've missed out.

But, should my dedicated Discord affect the forum's activity severely then I may decide to pull it down, if I know this for real from my own experience but, I'll give it a few days or weeks, and then I'll take it from there.

 

[simonweb]

Is Discord killing forums?

What isn't killing forums these days? 😛

Content and activity are crucial for forums, we all know this. So if you connect another content channel, like Discord, to your site/forum you will split up your content. And we also know that people (your visitors!) are lazy and that they will always use the easiest and fastest way to do things. And let us be honest here, most forums are complicated and slow to use and they rarely give users instant reward/feedback when posting, something which a channel like Discord excels at.

So IMO I think it's madness to add Discord to your forum unless you have a gaming-oriented community (in which case you use Discord when you set up gaming parties etc) and/or make your forums easy to use with unique content/features your visitors cant get on your Discord channel.

 

[Azareal]

What isn't killing forums these days? 😛

Content and activity are crucial for forums, we all know this. So if you connect another content channel, like Discord, to your site/forum you will split up your content. And we also know that people (your visitors!) are lazy and that they will always use the easiest and fastest way to do things. And let us be honest here, most forums are complicated and slow to use and they rarely give users instant reward/feedback when posting, something which a channel like Discord excels at.

So IMO I think it's madness to add Discord to your forum unless you have a gaming-oriented community (in which case you use Discord when you set up gaming parties etc) and/or make your forums easy to use with unique content/features your visitors cant get on your Discord channel.

Discord is convenient. No fifty sites to follow, no tidal wave of moderation to do in a big sprawl, everything is modern, etc.

Forums have largely been stagnating for the past decade. It's all the same old, same old.
Just phpBB, XenForo, etc. pushing the exact same pieces of software they have for about an eternity and pretending that they're doing something revolutionary when they're really doing something mundane.

That is the difference. NodeBB / Discourse, about the chance forums have of competing with any serious platform, have extremely simplistic themes which only a programmer would put up with. No surprise, that they've found mass-adoption in the programming scene, particularly in open source, but not a step outside of there.

Even XenForo, which was historically, the "modern one", if you casually look around their forums, you just see people who are tired of the same old, same old. Some who are even going custom simply because the developers can't or won't keep up with reality.

Traditionalism was alright back in 2013 when social media and all that was new, but it is really biting now that people are either going retro or creating interfaces which only a programmer could love.

Discourse is already half-way to a chat. If someone edits a post and you're viewing it, then it will instantly update on your screen as-well. Also, when someone pings you or w/e, then you get an instant poke through he pubsub server rather than whatever AJAX black magic mini-DDoS implementation you have running.

In 2013, it was extremely extravagant to do something like that, these days, it's so cheap and commonplace that people won't even bat an eye at it.

The really cutting edge stuff in 2019 for forums will likely be machine learning for search, element queries for components, etc. but I'm sure the market will largely chase Discourse's footsteps instead.

 

[Bryn]

So if you connect another content channel, like Discord, to your site/forum you will split up your content.

Not really for my case, because I've only pushed out the invite as a mass alert to all my members, and that the "Discord" navigation bit would only be visible to members only, when that had been added recently. I also added a bit under the announcement of the Discord server that it should not be a replacement for the forum. So far though after a few days, it's going okay. Mostly quiet though... I like it quiet 😛