08-12-2018, 09:17 PM
My thoughts on the Discord group and how it fits in to the bigger picture:
When we first launched the official Discord group, we had a philosophy of "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks." We didn't have a master plan for how it would look or how it would fit into our long-term plans. We just experimented with different ideas, and we kept them if they worked and changed them if they didn't.
Moderating a fast-moving chat group is a lot different from moderating a forum. It's also a lot more difficult. In a forum, people tend to put more thought into their posts, and since forum users rarely respond immediately, people have a chance to collect their thoughts before things get too heated. In a chat group, there's a lot of rapid back-and-forth conversations, and it's a lot easier for arguments to break out. That's why we recently added a few chat mods so someone will be able to keep an eye on the Discord at every hour of the day.
Is the Discord making MFGG a better place overall? I don't know. The Discord probably has helped attract some new members, but I think that large chat groups cannibalize the forum to a certain degree. On the other hand, MFGGers have been setting up big unofficial chat groups for many years, but those weren't as big as the current one since they were unofficial and weren't promoted much.
The past couple of months have been unusually slow on the forums, and there's been an uptick in drama, so we'll be evaluating the quality of the conversation on Discord and how it affects the overall atmosphere.
When we first launched the official Discord group, we had a philosophy of "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks." We didn't have a master plan for how it would look or how it would fit into our long-term plans. We just experimented with different ideas, and we kept them if they worked and changed them if they didn't.
Moderating a fast-moving chat group is a lot different from moderating a forum. It's also a lot more difficult. In a forum, people tend to put more thought into their posts, and since forum users rarely respond immediately, people have a chance to collect their thoughts before things get too heated. In a chat group, there's a lot of rapid back-and-forth conversations, and it's a lot easier for arguments to break out. That's why we recently added a few chat mods so someone will be able to keep an eye on the Discord at every hour of the day.
Is the Discord making MFGG a better place overall? I don't know. The Discord probably has helped attract some new members, but I think that large chat groups cannibalize the forum to a certain degree. On the other hand, MFGGers have been setting up big unofficial chat groups for many years, but those weren't as big as the current one since they were unofficial and weren't promoted much.
The past couple of months have been unusually slow on the forums, and there's been an uptick in drama, so we'll be evaluating the quality of the conversation on Discord and how it affects the overall atmosphere.
Course clear! You got a card.
![[Image: CourseClear.gif]](https://dl.dropbox.com/s/d5mcpm4nmt0gd14/CourseClear.gif)