The future of the forums - a call for comments

[Karsten75]

Over time traffic to the forums has decreased significantly.  Most social interaction is now taking place on Discord. The user base of the Discord community also exceeds the user base that the forum community built up over the span of 13 years.

Discord is planning to introduce Forum channels, where topics can be grouped in threads. This is very similar to the recently-introduced Threads, but perhaps a little more integrated.

We have, on an evaluation-basis, implemented two Thread-based channels where new maps for CW3 and CW4 are logged, similar to the custom map boards here on the SMF forums.

Support for CW4 has already moved to GitHub. This will most likely be the venue for all future support issues for games from Knucracker.

One advantage of Discord forums over SMF forums is that hosting and storage is provided by Discord, thus reducing costs involved in maintaining, hosting and administering the platform.

This post invites members of the community to evaluate the changes under consideration and provide suggestions and comments as they see these changes impacting them.

Knuckle Cracker Discord:  https://knucklecracker.com/forums/index.php?topic=26641.0

More on Discord:  https://discord.com/
More on Discord Threads:  https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403205878423-Threads-FAQ
More on Discord Forums:  https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/6208479917079-Forum-Channels-FAQ

[kwinse]

I strongly oppose any measure that completely moves helpful information away to someplace that Google etc. can't see it. Especially since you have to register an account to see anything on Discord.

And the ease of Discord hosting everything also means the pain if Discord ever decides to pull the plug, or changes their policies such that you want to pull the plug.

[Karsten75]

I
And the ease of Discord hosting everything also means the pain if Discord ever decides to pull the plug, or changes their policies such that you want to pull the plug.

Leaving aside the issue of Google being able to crawl the forums, I think there's merit in eliminating known cost in reduced hosting, software maintenance, housekeeping and spam/hacker mitigation to offset a future hypothetical, no?

[Helper]

I
And the ease of Discord hosting everything also means the pain if Discord ever decides to pull the plug, or changes their policies such that you want to pull the plug.

Leaving aside the issue of Google being able to crawl the forums, I think there's merit in eliminating known cost in reduced hosting, software maintenance, housekeeping and spam/hacker mitigation to offset a future hypothetical, no?

Why would you leave aside Google's crawling Discord? They and their sub-entities have been blocked from my computers for years.

It is one thing to allow KC to drop a cookie on my computer and track my activities, it is another thing entirely to allow Discord/who knows who to be tracking and selling my information.

Since it is your proposal, it would be expected for you to defend it.
I'm with kwinse. 100% opposed to Discord.
I tried it at your suggestion and quit after just a few days. What we have works. No need to change.

The forums we have here are where we've been talking to each other since day one.
They are part and parcel of the whole CW experience.

[Sorrontis]

I said neutral because I use Discord quite a lot for different reasons.

However, I see both forums & discord having different benefits.
Discord gets a lot of rapid discourse and auxiliary uses (match making for multiplayer for example). The forums have a lot less "junk," and leave Knuknu more control over the content here.

I wasn't aware that the forums had associated cost other than the server costs which are already present for the map servers. If that's the case, then the equation changes significantly.   

EDIT: Forgot to add one thing. Having both allows members to chose one or the other, if they have a reason to abstain from a service.

[knucracker]

I don't see the forums going away any time soon.  Even if they did, they would enter an archive read only mode, or enter a state where most of the groups were read only, but maybe the map groups remained read/write.  Even this would be out in the future a ways,

I see this thought process as more of a; 'just over the horizon' type of thing.  When I look at the game players of the future by looking at kids now, I don't see a lot of activity on bespoke forums.  It isn't zero, it's just clear that to make an account on a forum for a particular game and post to that limited audience on that website... it's a diminishing thing.  That's what I'm seeing anyway. I don't see it as good or bad, it's just a thing and an evolution of how people communicate.

Once discord rolls out forums, it will be interesting to see how that evolves and changes discord.  They may make their forums 'crawlable' by search engines in some way, they might provide tighter integration between their forums and 'regular' discord channels... I don't know.  It's something to keep an eye on. 

My goals have always been to do what I can to create a friendly place for an ecosystem to grow around the games I make.  When people can participate, help each other, provide added value to each other... that's a good thing.  So I'll try to keep doing that and use whatever platforms and tools make sense for as many people as I can as technology evolves.

[yum-forum]

By my opinion better to remain current system: Forums as now and chats in Discord.

I wish Good lu to KC Community!  :) :)

[D0m0nik]

I agree with KC in that change is inevitable, I prefer the format of the forum but that is probably because I am a bit older and just don't like change anymore. But everything changes and nothing lasts forever.  It turns out we become more conservative and less radical as we age!

I don't use any social media, the forums are pretty much the only place I interact online, it is a very small community but has great value to its members, it feels like a safe, enclosed space in a vast scary digital world. Some of us have had these strange, distant but still very meaningful relationships here for a long time now and they really matter. That is why I would like to see the forums stay as long as possible.

With regards to data I think anyone trying to protect their private data is fighting a losing battle with the rapid progression of increasingly invasive technology. The latest pacemakers for example communicate live data on a constant live feed. Although you own the pacemaker you have no rights whatsoever to the data, it is free to be sold by the software owner to the highest bidder (insurance company!).  Google snooping on me talking about an indy game is small cheese in comparison.  Like it or not but the future will see the death of the forums and the erosion of personal data privacy, perhaps time to go off grid! 

[GoodMorning]

I see the crawlability of the forum as a positive - it's not meant to be anything but public, and it makes it easier to find (say) support threads.

SMF was designed originally as forum software, and Discord was not.

I'm mainly glad that the forum is still here, and I'd overall prefer to see it continue. I'm not around too much anymore, but it's very pleasant to drop in and see new faces and old.

[teknotiss]

just no, 100% no, what a terrible idea, not worth any possible savings!

discord is a chat app for multiplayer gaming matching, even if they open forums it will be terrible to use, and most people who go on discord go there to chat not post long entries in a forum, that background culture will leak and ruin what scraps of community are left after the transfer... since many will not go at all, others will post once or twice then never again and you will be left with a few users who are fine with giant corporations endlessly harvesting their data!

forcing users to use another corporations service is a terrible idea.  giving a forum community destroying corporation the power to destroy our forums is a really daft thing to propose!

discord is also a terrible service and not fit for the purpose of this forum, even if they introduce forums on their site i doubt that it will serve the users of KC games very well, since there is no reason discord should put themselves to any trouble on behalf of a KC user. our userbase is so small compared to the big games i suspect we would be at the bottom of the list for tech support etc if there is a problem with discord in future.

some users will simply not want to give up their personal data to discord, and KC forcing them to do that will result in those players simply not taking part anymore.

this article explains some other problems very well...

https://kotaku.com/please-stop-closing-forums-and-moving-people-to-discord-1847684851

From that article:
"Forums create a record, an archive we can search through, so that whenever we want to revisit issues, or find help with a problem, or see what was happening during a certain time, we can do that. There's a paper trail, and while sometimes that leads to embarrassing takes on tv shows and game reveals, other times it's providing an enormous help with technical issues or parts of a game you're stuck on.

Discord simply can't provide that. It's a river running in real-time, and while it does have search functions, the way the whole app is structured means you're simply never going to get the same levels of detailed discussion or archived information as we can get from forums. If places want to open a Discord and run that as something else, then cool, but using it as a replacement for forums is a disaster."

and ultimately giving power to discord over the future of the KC playerbase is self defeating and will most likely kill the community off totally.

i 100% oppose this in every possible fashion, if V is finding the forums to expensive to maintain then shopping about for a cheaper host is a far better idea than handing the keys to discord and hoping it all goes well.

i am pretty certain this move is the end of the KC community if it goes ahead, and that makes me a bit sad as i have been using this forum to help and to be helped for a decade or something now.

i also think transferring support to GitHub is a terrible idea since that site is badly designed, hard to comprehend for non-coders and one of the worst "communities" online for support, since a lot of people on there are pretty awful to new users.

Karsten75 said "Leaving aside the issue of Google being able to crawl the forums, I think there's merit in eliminating known cost in reduced hosting, software maintenance, housekeeping and spam/hacker mitigation to offset a future hypothetical, no?"

no.  there is simply no merit in any of that when the counterweight is handing the keys to the kingdom to a group of people who would, at the drop of a hat, be happy to switch off KC's discord "fora" if it served their purpose... giving anyone else control over who can and cannot access KC content is not acceptable to me, even if it makes things a little cheaper.

how much is the forum costing KC each year?  if you let us know we can either group fund it or maybe find a better service host and move to them?

[Karsten75]

just no, 100% no, what a terrible idea, not worth any possible savings!

...

https://kotaku.com/please-stop-closing-forums-and-moving-people-to-discord-1847684851

From that article:
...

how much is the forum costing KC each year?  if you let us know we can either group fund it or maybe find a better service host and move to them?

You quote an article from before Discord has announced forums, which will be post-based and will remove many of the issues mentioned in that article.

To have a vibrant, active community, we have to be where the community is. The Discord userbase, both "registered" and active, I already many times the size of the same on the forum.  I (and many others) answer many more tech support and game-related questions on Discord than gets asked and answered here on the forum.

Since inception as an in-game chat app, Discord has evolved significantly.

Many new and especially young players are already registered on Discord, for other games, for social purposes, etc. For these people, it's much easier to join the Knucracker Discord and interact with the community. They don't have to create an additional registration on a site, etc. The number of active gaming communities on Discord is so much bigger than you can imagine. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry have a Discord there. 

But as knucracker points out, we're discussing the forum. This thread is a call for comments, so we can gather all objections or supportive opinions, evaluate them and then knucracker gets to make the decision as he sees fit. Also, it is hard to retrofit this into the infrastructure of the older games, and we'd have to evaluate that.. For all we know (and we really don't know at this point) this only is relevant for new games going forward.

Lastly, I'm surprised that long-time members here still don't know or understand that "cost" is often a cost in personal time, not so much as a monetary cost. That, and that knucracker is quite opposed to fundraising and relying on community contributions.

[teknotiss]

You quote an article from before Discord has announced forums, which will be post-based and will remove many of the issues mentioned in that article.

we will see, i have less faith in corporations than you do clearly...

To have a vibrant, active community, we have to be where the community is. The Discord userbase, both "registered" and active, I already many times the size of the same on the forum.  I (and many others) answer many more tech support and game-related questions on Discord than gets asked and answered here on the forum.

i doubt there will be any cross over from us going to discord... i suspect that a loss of users will occur rather than a gain.

Since inception as an in-game chat app, Discord has evolved significantly.

Many new and especially young players are already registered on Discord, for other games, for social purposes, etc. For these people, it's much easier to join the Knucracker Discord and interact with the community. They don't have to create an additional registration on a site, etc. The number of active gaming communities on Discord is so much bigger than you can imagine. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry have a Discord there. 

i hate to go all my mother on people but "if everyone was jumping off a cliff would you do that too?"... seriously, just cos "everyone" (it is not everyone, the majority of gamers do not use discord) is doing something is hardly a reason to leap in feet first.

But as knucracker points out, we're discussing the forum. This thread is a call for comments, so we can gather all objections or supportive opinions, evaluate them and then knucracker gets to make the decision as he sees fit. Also, it is hard to retrofit this into the infrastructure of the older games, and we'd have to evaluate that.. For all we know (and we really don't know at this point) this only is relevant for new games going forward.

so why are you arguing with me about my opinion then?

Lastly, I'm surprised that long-time members here still don't know or understand that "cost" is often a cost in personal time, not so much as a monetary cost. That, and that knucracker is quite opposed to fundraising and relying on community contributions.

if you do not have the time to do the moderation of all the areas of the current forum plenty of people here are willing to share the load...  as you are already aware, and said no to.

and how, exactly, will moving to discord result in less moderation?  especially if, somehow, we end up with more users... surely the demands on your time will get worse/heavier then, no?

[Karsten75]

Teknotiss, not moderation, that's insignificant. There are other matters that require knucracker's time. And FYI, there are a team of moderators on our Discord server.

As for the rest, you're right, I need not argue with you.

[J]

Forums may have been announced for discord, but since I haven't got the chance to use them properly yet, I'll comment as if they don't exist (if you disagree, please try again later when we do have that experience).

For me, Discord is a mess. I do not have the control over what to read (and what not) as I have on the forums. It is impossible to read all posts that are relevant to me without reading a lot of other stuff too, and time is too precious for me to read all of it. I need someone to ping me if there's anything related to me, and that won't always happen.
SMF provides a clear view of what new posts there are since my last visit (or even anything I haven't (marked) read) and allows me to quickly see and read/discard any usable information, even more so with the old core theme.
With the custom map comments, we got an even more direct comparison, and I've quickly given up on trying to keep up with the custom map comments on discord due to the lack of a proper overview.

Support has already moved to discord and works fine, but there's is something very different about support compared to other parts of the forum. When someone calls for support, their issues get sorted out as soon as possible and their case is closed. It doesn't need any attention anymore, ever. That is not the case for most other topics (even a 1-hour delay is often too long for discord to not be flooded by the river of posts).

I've recently joined the Dominion discord and forums, and they work fine together there. Discord for chatter, short announcements, tournaments and quick games, and forums for contests, lengthy discussions and blog-like posts/announcements. Don't chat on forums, and don't do archivable discussions on discord.

[rennervate]

i love this forum. i'm old and hate changes...