A lot of us run both. A forum for permanence, a Discord for quick chat. In theory, that’s a solid combo. But the reality? I’ve watched plenty of forums turn into ghost towns while the Discord buzzes with the exact conversations that should have been threads. Other times, Discord has brought people in and kept the community active. It’s messy. So I’m wondering: has Discord been a benefit or a parasite for your forum? Are you finding a balance, or does one always end up cannibalising the other?

 

I have typically considered Discord to be the killer of a forum, but how do you turn Discord into an advantage for your community?

You could limit the number of channels you have in a Discord server, and have it strictly for staff or a few exclusive members. That way, all those conversations that would happen in a server can happen on your forum instead. For example, if you've got a Roleplaying forum you can have your off topic chats on Discord but have the forum strictly for in character conversations.

Discord, much like the older technology of Shout Boxes, I've found take away from people posting content on the forum.

 

I've got a Discord, but it's dead. I have one friend who prefers to use Discord, and nothing else. We chat there occasionally. (He used to be a member of my old forum, like 15 years ago). I've only got like three channels on the Discord, because I'd rather be on the forum. I'm old school, and I'm looking for people who are just as old-school as I am.

 

Now, I do have a Shout Box on my site, but it's quite limited. I've got it restricted to remember only the previous 15 shouts. Each shout can only be a max of 256 characters long. It's meant for quick check-ins, like "good morning" or "I'm alive", perhaps even "Coffee is hot this morning." And the only reason I installed a Shout Box is because some people prefer having a quick messaging system that is live like that for just this, checking-in.

I don’t use discord on my forum, but I do have affiliate discord that I recently partnered up with.

 

They’re a much smaller community and have different channels that we don’t cover on our boards. They also share our topics on a weekly segment, which enables us to reach a wider audience.

 

I don’t see myself ever creating a discord channel for my forum itself. I believe it’ll be the killer of the community itself. It is not a replacement for a forum. It’s a branch off for support systems and that’s it.