Discord use, and/or centralized discussion area

[AboveTheChemist]

Do most folks on here use Discord? I check it occasionally (3-4 times a week) but don't generally leave it open, and I just assumed that this club was the primary discussion area for wiki-related stuff. I mention this because there was some discussion recently on Discord that involved some ongoing wiki edits that I am doing, and had I seen the discussion in time I could have provided some helpful information.

 

It made me wonder if we should try to establish and/or promote a centralized location for wiki discussion, either here or perhaps on a dedicated wiki channel on the HC Discord server (assuming we could get permission to set that up). I suspect that some forum users don't use Discord, and vice versa, so there may not be an ideal solution. But I think it would be good to try to reach as broad an audience as possible.

 

I hope I am not overthinking this. I think this would facilitate getting help and/or constructive input when we need it, and for larger, ongoing projects it would facilitate more efficient, collaborative work.

 

Anyway, let me know what you think! Thanks!

[Doc_Scorpion]

This is... not a good idea.  Despite the fact that fad and fashion are leading people to misuse chatrooms, they are not a substitute for forums.  You can't quote.  You can't link.  You can't thread. You can't search.  Stuff is all too easily pushed off the top of screen and lost forever to the mists of time.  It's very inconvenient to scroll back, locate, and substantively reconstruct a conversation.  (Not the least because you can have multiple parallel conversations in a single chatroom - and no ability to "take it to another thread".

They are emphatically not a place to discuss or post things of any long term importance (such as policy) because of these drawbacks.  They're great for in-the-moment stuff, but otherwise folks need to be redirected to the forums.  (That is, to be useful they must be monitored and moderated.)

 

[AboveTheChemist]

22 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

This is... not a good idea. 

Assuming you mean using Discord for discussion, I agree completely. I'd much rather these forums, and this club in particular, be the hub of discussion, and that is how I have approached it to date. I probably should have made that more clear in the OP, but I didn't want to dissuade anyone from voicing an opinion.

 

If folks generally agree with that approach, we'd need a way of steering any significant discussion on Discord to here.