Currently active auditory of WorldMachine based in platforms like Discord (only Minecraft community have ~10 users that chats every day), this online forum mostly dead and rarely used by real community of WorldMachine
It would be really cool to unite software and community on one actually active platform. Developer may connect web forum and discord forums together - so topics will be still linked. Discord bot may help deal with it
Developers of others world-generation softwares already have discord communities
I think it is best to have both separate. Discord is not nice as a forum, messages move too fast. I should restart my bot that posted updates whenever someone posted on the forum.
There’s the additional con to “forums on Discord” is that Discord is not indexed by search engines. So you can’t go into Google to look up stuff, you have to join the Discord server to search.
And even then, Discord’s search isn’t that great.
I’m occassionally checking these forums, but as you can see from my late reply it’s not that often. This is also one of the reasons why Discord would be terrible for me. I don’t have time to constantly keep up with a chat, or after being away for a while to try to make sense of a chat that shows multiple conversations that interrupt each other. I think Discord is a bad alternative to forums and I’m honestly confused that this has been such a popular move.
Alternatively, may I suggest that you encourage those people your refer to on Discord to join and participate on these forums?
Most of those people know about forum existance already (at least i did saw some posts of those people here)
Problem is that forums is old stuff that is not suitable for zoomers as me (it is more a joke, not a real argument, EHEH)
So you can not expect that those guys will build separate habit for individual software to go on separate web-site for abbility to communicate. If you create and sell product it is your own need to create as efficient community infstructe as possible, i will show that on examples in the bottom
users that want to chat, want to have chat in as comfortable access as possible - (i think thats logic of every consumer of products) the best i think is to have chat in the place, where main community already have active communication - in Discord. WM developer will still have ability to directly connect old forum (current one on that we chat) with Discord one. So you will still use that forum, without need to go to discord - forum threads just will be connected
Some examples from other software:
Gaea do not have forum, only discord with super active chats and forums (i may be wrong with that info)
WorldCreator have forum and discord and milion of other socials - also discord is ultra active (i may be wrong with that info)
Based on that i still think that for general active chatting purpose is better to use Discord (or any other popular platform that will have, or already comfortable for use for WorldMachine community as discord)
aaa, it is not the best argumentation that i want write on that point, - if developer will be interested in that i will create more cogerent explanation of position, sorry if i writed too much text
These conventional forums are great for long form content that’s useful. Great for memory and knowledge, and news! Things stay where they are, and are public and linkable. This forum also has personal messaging, but it’s basic and more akin to an email. Great for a small business though, as you get as much value out of it as the energy you pump into this system.
Discord is more for chat, connecting with peers, temporary promotion and marketing, and all that with low latency. It has as much value as social media, though it also has memory of a goldfish. Not great for the slow but steady, too much wasted energy with little gain if you’re a small business. Great for users and consumers, individuals who are not invested as heavily into the company.
Where I'm coming from
I’m one of the mods working with the Gaea team on their “community” discord server. They used to have a conventional Forums like this one, taken offline in the beginning of this year due to spam and hacking attempts
I also helped guide the development of both Gaea and Vue, and now World Machine.
I created and maintained a Facebook Group dedicated to World Machine, so I have first hand experience with the WM user community, in full. I was also part of the conversation that spawned a Discord server for World Machine, created and maintained by a community member here. That discord server also died due to lack of activity during the same period this forum went silent.
If you read this far, might as well join us over on Facebook. Let’s breathe some life into that one too!
I personally prefer keeping all the interaction about WM here. Helps keep everything organized and searchable in the future. So if you want alternative platforms, they should be in ADDITION to this forum. My vote is to rather bring everyone HERE. You can keep chatting elsewhere, but open forums are unmatched where prime time conversations are concerned!
I gave up on the Discord (it’s more of a chat forum) and while I go long stretches without hitting this forum, I usually read and post while working on something in World Machine (while building/re-building).
I’d be very unhappy to lose this resource in favor of Discord.