Is it time for a new ENWorld demographics survey?

[Leatherhead]

Discord is really bad for for discussions with more than 6 active participants and/or longer than 45 minutes at a time. Any more people and you get buried under the responses, and any longer will inevitably cause someone to be forced to rehash the same talking points as the server filters in and out.

On the other hand, Reddit doesn't do discussion at all. After a thread starts you only get head-nodding, hot takes, and quips filtering to the top. And while you see the same points being argued over and over, this time because there is no centralized response point in a thread, and every branch gets automatically collapsed after it gets big enough, so you can't even see what other discussions are going on without heavy digging.

 

[Alzrius]

Discord is really bad for for discussions with more than 6 active participants and/or longer than 45 minutes at a time. Any more people and you get burred under the responses, and any longer will inevitably cause someone to be forced to rehash the same talking points as the server filters in and out.

On the other hand, Reddit doesn't do discussion at all. After a thread starts you only get head-nodding, hot takes, and quips filtering to the top. And while you see the same points being argued over and over, this time because there is no centralized response point in a thread, and every branch gets automatically collapsed after it gets big enough, so you can't even see what other discussions are going on without heavy digging.

I'm firmly of the belief that the worst part about any type of social media is the people on it, but crappy architecture is probably the second-worst part.

 

[Umbran]

I'm firmly of the belief that the worst part about any type of social media is the people on it, but crappy architecture is probably the second-worst

It isn't an architecture issue when you use a hammer as a screwdriver.

 

[Alzrius]

It isn't an architecture issue when you use a hammer as a screwdriver.

No, but the end result tends to be the same.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Discord is really bad for for discussions with more than 6 active participants and/or longer than 45 minutes at a time. Any more people and you get buried under the responses, and any longer will inevitably cause someone to be forced to rehash the same talking points as the server filters in and out.

Why do people use discord if discussions get buried so quickly? Is it common to have more than 6 active participants?

Sorry I'm a noob at this stuff. I only use forums and search reddit for ideas/solutions after the fact.

 

[payn]

Why do people use discord if discussions get buried so quickly? Is it common to have more than 6 active participants?

Depends. I have one for my RPG buddies. Its only 6 of us. It works great for organizing games, asking each other questions, etc.. I also belong to a local gaming discord that has 100+ members. I'd say about 12 post regularly and it stays pretty manageable. Folks tend to respect the channel divisions for topics. You can usually have a discussion and follow along due to lower numbers of members. Then, I belong to a few major ones that have 1000s of members. Its like the wild west in those. They have dozens of channels to try and wrangle the convos and have some form of moderation. Piles upon piles of off topic memes and unhelpful off topic comments. Multiple discussions happening simultaneously in the same channel at the same time. Its simply not manageable at that size without a dedicated moderator, and even then, its still a crapshow.

 

[Leatherhead]

Why do people use discord if discussions get buried so quickly? Is it common to have more than 6 active participants?

Discord is primarily a Voice/Video application, that also has text/picture upload functionality.

They are working on making the text part better.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why do people use discord if discussions get buried so quickly? Is it common to have more than 6 active participants?

It's great as a live chatroom, which is what my oldest uses it for, and what we use it for when doing online games. (We use the text channels for handouts and dice rolls.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's great as a live chatroom, which is what my oldest uses it for, and what we use it for when doing online games. (We use the text channels for handouts and dice rolls.)

The one I use most open is essentially a hangout for Big Purple refugees (the ones that didn't wander off to the RPGsite because a lot of those wouldn't be particularly welcome) and various odds and ends of folks who talk about games, computer games, politics and odds and ends. Its primarily practical because, as said, we probably don't have more than 20 regulars. And even at that when you get a really extensive back-and-forth and come into it late you often just skip over it.

On the other hand, the 13th Age Discord, to the degree its functional is only so because its split up into many subareas.

 

[Morrus]

Well, it's moving to Discord, which isn't quite as good yet, but the developers clearly want to make it a comparable experience.

Nah, forums are going to Reddit. Discord is something different.

We've outlasted MySpace(!) and Google+, and it looks like we'll outlast Twitter. We'll outlast a few more iterations of social media, and forum software will evolve too. There's always going to be a place for long-form discussion.