Is discord a good idea?

Thanks for weighing in everybody! Right now I (brandon) am leaning toward maybe using it for live show stuff at some point - I worry it might put some guests off so we'd probably do it with regulars, or once we're back to a full permanent rotation or something. But in general it's true that: - I don't want to manage two spaces and it could fragment things - I personally don't use discord as much - having it be for "events" gives it an actual purpose and difference from the forums I'll check into this stuff and see how it might work!

insert credit

true. i think it makes most sense to have the discord be just the venue for the live studio audience

coughsoda

I went for "I'm fine either way", but it was borderline that or "I wouldn't use it". I don't have anything against discord, I have an account and am on a small server with some friends that are now spread across the world. That said, I have been quite enjoying the forums and they have a very different energy than something realtime like discord, slack, IRC (!!) etc. I have a concern that fragmenting the community won't be a good thing, in a few ways: * danger of making a clique on the discord * splitting topics between the two and moving conversations away from the forums I also quite like being able to consume the forums on my own schedule. Discord (etc) feel far more demanding. Respond in real time or don't bother! Selfishly, I'm on the wrong side of the planet and all the conversations will be at 4am my time.

that said, i never tried it myself but back in the day couldn't listeners tune in to watch you all record the show on google hangouts or whatever it was? if you did that again, an exclusive discord channel for listening along and chatting with fellow patrons would be a lot of fun and probably net some extra subscriptions. it'd also contribute to the overall gameshow feel, and if it hit a critical mass you could maybe even do a listener-voted round live on air. i know of other podcasts that do a discord channel for recording sessions and their fans seem to love it, even though their shows aren't really suited to that kind of live audience experience – i think IC definitely would be.

coughsoda

i'm in some discords but feel like IC's vibe is better suited to the forum model (and as frank has said on his other podcast, discord is much worse for archiving). that said, having one that's patrons-only would probably be a net positive – then you wouldn't have to risk splitting your audience, and it'd be a simple, low-hassle way of enticing more listeners to become patrons. i don't expect i'd use it much but i'd probably join it and poke my head in sporadically

coughsoda

I'd probably only use it if it was for a specific purpose. The forum has a leisurely vibe, and I can pick and choose what to engage in in the order that I want to. That there is a forum at all is why I wanted to engage in the first place, and I find that I disengage from Discord in the long term because there ends up being swathes of text to catch up with. Splitting communities over two platforms is a lot of work for any mods too and I wouldn't want to put any additional pressure on them. On the other hand I *would* use it for patrons to join in somehow on the recording or other one-off stuff but that's really all I'd use it for.

Alexander Davies

I do like the idea of being able to listen live and chat with other listeners, and would even increase my payments if that became a different backer tier option!

sleepy nice

Serial forum lurker here to say that I would more readily participate in a discord just because I’m already on there either way. HOWEVER I think the energy of IC is more suited to the forum and maybe perhaps spreading your admin/mod attention over two platforms will be a little exhausting

sleepy nice

Patron-only-gated-Discord often doesn't stay that way. The invites are easy to leak. like you said, it's a weird concept to begin with. But if you wanna do it, I'd give it a try. It could be really cool for when I want to stream with IC users! But the moment it gets weird, I'm out! I need the forum energy in my life more than discord energy, where epic stuff gets lost more easily. Either way, there will be Sega Energy.

Tree Froggy

It sounds potentially awesome for me, I like the forums but forums are harder for me to engage with, I think a Discord with cool folks like from the IC forums would be really cool.

thebeigeknight

I like the forums because of the pace etc so a closed discord might be more appealing to me, but I chose "I'm fine either way".

I think it's probably only gatekeepey if stuff mentioned/discussed by patrons in the discord makes it into an episode of the podcast.

Shaneus

i’d give it a shot! my brain has a hard time keeping up with forums and i like bite-size chatrooms more. it would also be a great place for live recordings, q&a, impromptu streams, etc. a whole bunch of possible patreon bonus stuff!

I would use it. I dipped my toe into discord just this year and found it a bit unmanageable at first (I started with actionbutton--great community, but just way too active for me to keep up with). Since then I've joined a few more sparsely populated servers and generally enjoy it. It's not immediately obvious to me how this would function vs. the forums, though, so I wouldnt want to introduce too much redundancy or take away from the awesome vibe there. As for patreon exclusivity, I usually don't advocate for too much to be locked behind a paywall so it's up to you, though I could see it making the server size more manageable.

Kory

I'd use it for sure but I'm pretty active on discord anyway. It reminds me of hanging out in chat rooms from back then lol. However once a discord gets to big it's a little hectic to hang out in so don't get too famous k? ;)