.. and that's only half of the title.
I don't have a goal in this thread. I'm just putting thoughts down on paper. Paper that will persist because it's on a forum thread.
So, basically, I think Discord servers are ruining forums. But it might not quite be why we'd think, completely.
The main premise here is that people become victims to instant gratification. Being able to instantly plop down a message, similar to AIM, IRC, Yahoo Messenger, etc, is a luxury. Being able to chat with your friends in an instant is a luxury. Not having to worry about forum formalities and some degree of post permanence is a luxury.
It's also dumbing down our minds and messing with some semblance of etiquette that exists. On Discord, people don't always read up to see what they missed. On forums, when you click into a thread, it usually dumps you at the top of the page, and you can't help but read every post on the way down to see what people are saying. That way, you get to learn who people are, how they post, who's present in the community, and what public opinion is like. On Discord, that sense of interpersonal development happens less.
Plus, people can change their name more often on Discord. Here, not as much. On forums, people get a signature. On Discord, maybe a custom title if you're lucky. On Discord, you get so many roles that you can have so many different username colors. On forums, personal username colors are solidified for a certain specific role that means something specific every time.
On Forums, there's all kinds of useful BB Codes. Posts can be prettified. Links can be turned into specific text, and placed virtually anywhere. On Discord, you get the barebones basic text formatting with limited emotes, and we're lucky to even get that. Pinned messages exist, but they're a little bit clumsy, and not immediately obvious to people that they exist unless you know to look for them. On forums, they're always right there at the top where you're dumped when you click in, even if you're a newbie.
Forums can have AddOns and other interesting things. PZC has a main site and databases. Discord is always only what Discord can do, and not a heck of a lot more unless you jump through hoops to simulate something else.
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So, sometimes I wonder what the cause of a forum's demise is. It's always going to be true that people just move on. Real Life is always more important than internet forums. It does make me wonder how PZC was so active while IRC was active as well. Those were able to co-exist so beautifully without a problem. You'd go from the forums to IRC as if stepping from Six Flags to its Water Park and back again. Now, everyone just sits in Discord and waits for new activity there and doesn't need to use the General forums. It all seemed to coincide with the existence of Discord. Everyone rushed to get a Discord server when Discord first came out, and then forum activity everywhere died.
The most active forums I see are the ones without a Discord server. That's about it.