Is Discord the norms nowadays?

[mr_centipede 31]

I just got back from Arma platform discord channel, just to have a look at it... There are a lot of interaction there and are quite active. But as someone mention somewhere in this forum, the information are all over the place. Because its basically a chat room. Someone might be asking how to do a certain thing in scripting or what have you, then it got answered, and buried in new chat message... So my question is, is this normal now? Is there advantage in using discord instead of traditional forum  board?

 

Thank you

[Janez 531]

3 hours ago, mr_centipede said:

So my question is, is this normal now?

There has been a global push for it, does not necessarily make it normal or the norm.

 

3 hours ago, mr_centipede said:

Is there advantage in using discord instead of traditional forum  board?

Well, you said it yourself, it's basically a chat room. It has a function and it is fundamentally different to a forum. It can replace it but it wont be nearly as effective at what forum does, which is a platform to create detailed and expansive topics and then have the ability to conduct in-depth discussions about it, where large quantity of information can be presented in a single post, neatly organized. Naturally, the quality and quantity of that information is essentially dependent on how much energy the participants are willing to put into it.

With the help of modern search engines, forum organization and moderation, the information itself is then relatively easy to find and access quickly and once found, very easy to use and store.

 

The likes of Discord offer quick interactions between users that are currently present and can be beneficial to teach someone something via a lot of small steps, for example. The good things is that the one receiving the instructions by someone holding their hand, can progress fairly easy, however the discussion is practically useless to anyone seeking it later.

 

So, depending on what you want, it can indeed be of benefit. But you said all that already, albeit in a briefer manner. So, what is it that you are asking here? Is everyone going to migrate there and one might get left behind? Didn't that already happen? 🙂 Therefore, why worry? Regardless, this thing we have here, this always was a marathon type of thing and Arma 4 is a long way ahead.

Not even going into PP and ToS of Discord, personally, I have no need for such applications and will not use it as I do not use or consume other types of social media beyond the likes of YouTube, BitChute, Odysee, etc. I do not mind life, I have patience to allow good things to come my way.

 

 

PS: this forum being kinda dead does not solely come down to "no Arma 4" or "people moving on"  or whatever either. While I like BI and people here on BIF, technology wise, these forums are kinda lame. I wont name any but last couple of years I've been finding some incredibly advanced forums, offering very flexible search, viewing and exclusion parameters through clever tagging and naming.

 

Next, all the important information you could ever ask for is either in forum header or footer at all times, regardless of where you are. Here you have: share on Twitter, Facebook, G... Google+? Does that even exist anymore? OK... What about Feedback Tracker for example?

 

They look really good as well you know, things are slightly animated but not in an annoying, time wasting kinda way. Total joy to browse them.

And yet, here we are, still randomly getting logged out, no plain text mode and you know, this very window I'm typing in right now is still bright white, burning through my eyes despite using dark theme. Sure, I use Dark Reader to get around that but not everyone knows about these things, nor can or are willing to jump through so many hoops. BI added this voting answers thing to AR troubleshooting section though which can be a double edged sword when forum population gets back on track. I guess we'll see but whatever, you get the point.

[Kenai Phoenix 4]

The best advantage that Discord has with other apps like Reddit is having everything in one place, you just open one app/web and you can jump between your different communities. One issue is that you are under the rules of that app/platform, if you have you account banned you lose everything, they can impose moderators to the communities, etc. Other issue in my opinion, with Discord, is that it is just too chaotic: it is a giant group chat so good luck trying to find or follow one topic, it is more fast though.

 

Forums are not going anywhere, so you can always use all of the platforms

[WGP 91]

Don't really use discord, best info regards the arma series tends to be around groups (private or not), or indeed here is good to.

The arma series goes back some way, so newer players should expect to have to search broadly to get as much info as possible, probably not so much on discord.