If we deprecate Discord we have a couple of follow-up questions:
- Want a replacement chat space(s)?
- Where is it?
My 2c on point 1
I’m not sure we need a distinct chat space beyond this forum for now …
- First, I think it would be good to see if the forum structure works better for what we want (and this avoids duplication)
- Second, we do have some decent chat functionality built-in this forum as part of discourse
In my experience, chat can have an unfortunate gravitational field for discussion in a community: because it is so easy to get into chat becomes the default place to engage. However, the (lack of) affordances of chat is problematic at several levels: lack of threading makes rich discussion difficult, it encourages a certain superficiality and velocity of engagement.
IMO it would be better to try to limit chat to some combination of: watercooler, announcements and (informal) helpdesk and void its use for substantial discussion (the issue always is that once you offer chat … because of its ease of use even if you discourage posting substantial stuff … substantial stuff will get posted)
Where is it?
If did want chat … I’d suggest restricting to two initial options (happy to hear others of course):
- Using this forum chat
- Using whatsapp (if we use whatsapp this should be distinct from Life Itself)