Hello, I’ve been thinking of a Discord server for Notch for months and how it could positively affect the learning progression for many users. It could enhance the community in various ways and give users a chance to start up new conversations or even collaborations and provide a place for a more real-time discussion and answer platform. I think especially for shorter or simpler questions that aren’t quite worth making a forum post for it’d be great. Even with very minimal or no moderation more users would likely be inclined to participate and help each other out more than engaging a more formal/permanent forum. Sometimes a fast answer is priceless…
I know there’s a Facebook user group, but more and more people are shying away from Facebook these days for various reasons and it’s still not quite the same in terms of an actual chat server.
What @ckhallas said: there’s already an unofficial Discord community, and a Slack as well (notch-community.slack.com). As for official places of contact, this forum is getting most of the attention from the team (as well as our official support email of course). We’re not going to enter into an official chat-based “hangout” any time soon, as we are focusing on development efforts and those are easily distracted. Chat has many advantages, and to the community, it can be a great way to connect, but as an official contact surface, it is a poor one (for many, well-documented reasons - https://basecamp.com/guides/group-chat-problems).
Some from the team do respond sometimes in the Facebook user group, but as you mention; Facebook is increasingly being seen as a poor platform (downright negative); personally I dislike it as well. So there’s a balance to be had between “where most of the community currently reside” and “where we’d rather have them be active”. This forum will remain the main community hub in an official capacity for a few simple reasons;
It’s public
It’s not Facebook
It produces indexable (meaning findable) results for others – compared to walled garden chats like Discord, Slack and even Facebook
It’s easy to moderate when necessary (not that we’ve had many issues, but there are a few once in a while)
While seemingly more formal, a forum gives a question and a correct answer somewhere to live for others to discover; solutions, tips and tricks accumulate and create lasting value for the community.
@ckhallas That invite link has expired it seems; someone on the discord group/admin would have to issue another one (preferably one that doesn’t expire, if that’s possible?)
