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Additional Chat Options?


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Here's another thread on chats. 

This one is about OUTSIDE the forum. 

 

Something a lot of RP forums are picking up now is actively holding a Discord server outside of the forum. This is for many reasons. For one they allow multiple channels for different things. For another it allows the cbox to be used for guest questions without a ton of members drowning out the voice of the guest with their own personal chat and banter. On another hand there is FULL security, banning, roles, moderation, and endless possibilities with bots. With all of these options Discord has become pretty popular, or maybe it was popular before and I'm late to the party. A huge plus of Discord is having the option to log in from a web browser, or download it to your computer. It's WAY less intrusive than skype is, and has never slowed my computer down, no matter which way I use it...I have it downloaded on my phone and my computer for ease of access.

 

However I've heard mention of Slack, and alternative to Discord. Which made me realize there must be many other options out there for chat services that are OUTSIDE of your forum and allow for a wider range of discussions and options for your member base. What do you use, if any? If you don't use any, why is that? Why do you prefer one over the other?

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At Memory, we use Slack. It's very similar to Discord, but has a lot of different features. We use it mostly for its integration systems. Our staff shares a lot of files back and forth, and we use a lot of google docs within it too. Slack is built for that, and it's easy to search files and messages for something specific. Slack is designed more for businesses and enterprise systems, and for our community that's really helpful.

 

The only negative to Slack I've found is that it's a heavy application. Like Discord, you can get to it from your browser or by downloading the app. But it eats up a lot of memory. When you compare it to Discord, which is very lightweight since it's made for gamers, it can make a big difference. We've thought about switching for that very reason, but we probably won't. We're used to slack and the way it functions. And we don't need the video or voice capabilities that Discord has. 

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Thanks for this.  I have a new member who was trying to explain Discord to me yesterday.  I ended up making an account and joining the Initiative's discord so I could test it out.

 

I'm not super thrilled with the idea of having a chat "box" that's offsite.  It seems to defeat the purpose of having a forum to some extent.  But I'm testing it out anyhow.  Maybe I'll really like it.

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I started with the Initiative too, and I like it a lot.

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We use Slack because Slackbot is customizable and super helpful. We've made it a fun part of our chat that anticipates and answers questions for new players!

 

My only complaint is that it's difficult to add new members as you have to do it manually or otherwise update the code to accept various paramaters and it's annoying and tiresome.

 

I also make sure to keep our cbox active so guests can see at least I'm around! It just happens that cbox is for thread updates and Slack is for nonsense.

 

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@SithLordOfSnark I find the use of a larger chat to be better than the cbox that is currently on the site. This is because, as a potential new member, being drowned out in character talk, IC snippets, and jokes between members who already know eachother, can be incredibly annoying and difficult to get my voice heard. That being said, it the cbox is completely neglected, such as staff no longer bothering to check on it, it completely defeats the purpose of using it for guests and their questions.

 

@Uaithne I have found the Discord chat to bring something more to a member base. On another site that I utterly adore they had a general chat, icchat, and separate channels for the various groups on site so that they could discuss things within their own groups. Plus you can make individual roles for members like the member groups on the site, so you can individually mention them if there's something involving just that group..or set them apart by labeling them a site donor on the chat. Being able to break up the bits and pieces of the chat into sections made everything so smooth and simple and stopped the drowning out of the chat that was on the site. Albeit it also meant the cbox on the site was slightly deader than usual, but when a new member, or one of the members who didn't like Discord and therefore didn't use it, spoke in there, staff and some of the members were always quick to switch gears and chit chat there.

 

@Zahhy @Sage I've tried to use Slack, I'm not ashamed to admit some of it just plain confuses me. I think I'm just to familiar with Discord. Most of it seems utterly identical to Discord, which meant making the switch to it made very little sense to me. I wasn't aware of the bot customization, but you can also get some pretty awesome bots for Discord, including ones that answer questions, greet members, even play music via your voice channel.

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I have discord for my site. At first, I was apprehensive about it. I didn't want it to take away from the site and while yes there are some dead periods in the cbox, there are also dead periods in the discord chat. However, there's usually always someone who talks daily within the cbox especially when a guest pops up.

 

I personally like having discord because it makes plotting for group things easier. I run a supernatural site so having separate channels for each lycan species has really, really helped a great deal. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Our site just recently got Discord and our members have since naturally migrated from talking in the cbox to talking in Discord. Everyone seems to love it, but I worry that the dead looking cbox that's still on the site will dissuade potential members from joining because that seems like the first thing people look at to determine site health.

 

So how are people with Discord/Slack servers dealing with this? Have you gotten rid of the cbox completely or do you have to make sure that there's a bit of chatter in the box everyday so it doesn't look so quiet? We of course still have the site up and will switch over if someone comes into the cbox, but it still has me stressing a bit.

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@Indio this is my same exact concern. I use Discord for my gaming already, but I've been apprehensive about adding a channel there for any of my RP sites.

 

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@Indio. I removed my chat box but have never liked them anyway. 

 

I understand that people use chat boxes to ask questions or gauge the community environment. With that in mind, my OOC forums are guest friendly and I try to drum up activity over there so that guests can get an idea of what we are like. 

 

I guess before making any switch you really have to ask yourself whether or not Discord has extras that you really really need or want. You may find that the pay offs are not worth the risk, and that's ok. 

 

(I love discord BTW. Highly recommend it.) 

 

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