Does your forum have a Discord server?

[Ravenfreak]

There are a few forums that I've joined that have a Discord server alongside their forum. Does your forum have a discord server? Do you think it's beneficial to have one to have a real time discussion with members or voice chat? I can see it working out for gaming communities, that way you can have your major discussions on the forums but then have events on the Discord Server and play video games together.

 

[Shortie]

The forum I am currently co-owing which is an entertainment forum for gaming and even streaming and content creation does also have a Discord server alongside it as well as a Guilded server alongside it as well. We find this really helps in having real time communication with our members and it also allows us to do other things we are not able to do on the forum such as have a section for stream schedules and even a section to advertise when you are live as well for live streams.

 

[Cory]

Yes, my forum has a Discord server. It only has 4 channels on it, but the primary use of one of the channels is to post notices of new resources that are released to notify Discord users of new resources posted on the board itself.

 

[Kale]

Have you considered or have a Discord serrver for your forum? One big draw back to this is the Discord being more active than your own forum.

What is your experience with this? Any advice or tips? I have a server which was for my old forum but also was made way before then.

 

[Cedric]

I would advise to use it to keep it as an update medium rather than an alternative chat/discussion medium. Have your members join it, if the main board goes offline and there is no way to let members know what’s happening.

The moment you spend too much time on the discord server and add area’s to have discussion other than updates, is the moment you’re killing off you’re own community.

 

[Kale]

The moment you spend too much time on the discord server and add area’s to have discussion other than updates, is the moment you’re killing off you’re own community.

Yep, exactly. I see this issue a lot for many forums. I'd also just use it as a place to do updates or if the forum goes offline for whatever reason randomly or due to server issues.

 

[Cory]

My board has a Discord server with only four channels, one of which has yet to be posted and the most important one is to keep users updated on the new codes and skins released on the board.

 

[Smokey]

I have both a discord & a guilded server for my forum but I think i'm gonna be migrating people over to the Discord server & perhaps re-organize it a bit for 2023 as Discord is more widely used over Guilded, Despite me being a Guilded partner.

 

[Kale]

I have both a discord & a guilded server for my forum but I think i'm gonna be migrating people over to the Discord server & perhaps re-organize it a bit for 2023 as Discord is more widely used over Guilded, Despite me being a Guilded partner.

I would possibly. I've never seen many people even use Guilded sadly. I am hoping if Discord does die out that Guilded takes it's place though. A gaming forum having a Discord seems a bit obvious, but worry about it taking over the forum so prolly wouldn't have discussion channels/rooms.

 

[JennyorAlice]

I've seen an RPG forum use discord so that members could talk to each other in real time and plan out their role playing.

 

[Kale]

I've seen an RPG forum use discord so that members could talk to each other in real time and plan out their role playing.

That is fine by me, really. I think making channels for that and not discussion ones are best for RP/RPG forums.

 

[Arantor]

It's very big in the RP scene to have Discords for the out-of-character/plotting/discussion and leave the main forum for discussion.

You run the risk of people not going to the forum but I find there are ways to mitigate that - careful moderation for one, and for two if your forum supports it, to have notifications of new topics/updated topics be pushed to the Discord in a dedicated channel. Helps bridge the gap.

I have seen more extensive bridges done between a forum and a Discord - log in with Discord isn't particularly hard to do, but syncing groups can be if that's something you *really* want to do, but I'm not sure how much extra value this generates yet.

 

[Kale]

It's very big in the RP scene to have Discords for the out-of-character/plotting/discussion and leave the main forum for discussion.

I have noticed a lot of RP forums stopped using cbox and similar, and just opt to make a Discord server.

 

[Arantor]

It makes sense, because no cbox can match the level of expression or quality of life features that Discord brings - do any of the forum cboxes/shoutboxes let you upload images yet (especially copy/paste), or embed Tenor GIFs easily, etc.?

Plus most cboxes only have the one 'channel' while Discord servers let you organise.

I think if RP forums in particular want to break that dependency, they need to *really* up the featureset but that has its own set of implementation problems.

 

[Shortie]

I have both a Guilded and Discord server myself but these are used for my content creation more than for forums that I co-own or may own. My only concern with having a Discord server for things like my forum would be as you stated, my Discord is more active than my forum so I tend to keep forums and Discord separate for that reason.

 

[Heatman]

I have heard some forum owners talk about having a discord server taking away discussion away from the forum which is why they are not always interested in having one. Personally, I don't mind it at all because it looks very useful for me. It can also serve as another channel to reach your staff quickly.

 

[Arantor]

It doesn't appear to be stifling here any!

 

[Oblivion Knight]

We trialled a Discord server, but it wasn't really being utilised so I decided to close it in favour of keeping discussions on the forums.

 

[ladyquack]

My site has a Discord, but it's only ever used to communicate maintenance or downtime. The majority of my members prefer to use Skype.