Community Update: What Do You Think of Discord?

[steven.andrews]

Dear OptiTrack Community,

I hope this message finds you well and thriving in your motion capture endeavors. As we continue to grow and evolve, it's crucial that our platforms for communication and collaboration do the same. We are considering transitioning our community from the current phpBB forums to Discord, a more modern and widely-used platform.

This move is aimed at enhancing our community's connectivity, accessibility, and overall experience. Discord offers a dynamic environment for real-time discussion, support, and knowledge sharing, which we believe could greatly benefit all members of our community.

However, such a transition is not a decision we take lightly, especially considering the history and content that have been cultivated in our forums over the years. Your insights, experiences, and needs are paramount in guiding this move.


What Do You Think of Discord?

To ensure this transition reflects the collective will and needs of our community, we invite you to share your thoughts on a few key points:

1. Your Feedback on Moving to Discord: How do you feel about transitioning our community discussions to Discord? What are your concerns, and what opportunities do you see?
2. Essential Channels and Topics: What channels or topics would you consider essential for our new Discord server? Think about the areas that matter most to you and our community.
3. Valuable Content Migration: There's a wealth of knowledge within our forums. We need your help identifying the most valuable threads, posts, or topics. Please link to any content you believe should be migrated to our new platform. This includes historical discussions that remain relevant, helpful tutorials, frequently asked questions, and anything else you deem indispensable.
4. Community Engagement and Structure Suggestions: How do you envision the structure of our Discord server? Any specific roles, permissions, or guidelines you think would foster a positive and productive environment?
5. Additional Features or Ideas: Are there any specific features or innovative ideas you'd like to see implemented to enhance our community interaction on Discord?

Your Voice Matters
This is an opportunity to redefine and enhance our community's digital space. Whether you're a novice just starting out, or an expert with years of experience, your feedback is invaluable to us.

Please share your thoughts, suggestions, and any content links by March 31, 2024. Your input will play a critical role in shaping the future of our community's platform.

We are excited about the possibilities Discord could offer and are eager to hear your thoughts. Together, let's ensure our community continues to be a vibrant, supportive, and innovative space for all things motion capture.

Thank you for your time, dedication, and contributions to our community. We look forward to your feedback.


Warm regards,

Steven Andrews
Sr. Director, Support Engineering
OptiTrack

[bsteagal]

Hi Steven

I think moving to Discord from this rather outdated forum is a fantastic idea, but be prepared for a lot of feedback once there!

Go for it OptiTrack

[icecreamman]

Yeah my only hesitation about discord is that folks expect pretty quick responses, but if you’re just talking solely about marketplace posting and not support , maybe that’s not a bad idea.
(But ugh, one more discord channel on my long list of discord channels) lol

[ChemnitzScientist]

In my opinion, the issues with this forum are not related to the software, they are related to the lack of content and answers. If you want Discord to be a place for community discussion, it might be suitable but will probably need more moderation. If you want it to be a place to get official support, I consider it a bad idea. Forums are easier to organize and keep track of. In Discord, topics tend to "disappear" like they would on WhatsApp or any chat, even in the forums mode Discord has. Also, searching on Discord is not as easy as in a Forum, and content on Discord can not be found via search engines like Google, which is a huge downside.

I would rather keep the existing forums and make sure topics here are answered quickly. Also, it would help to string the different sources of information together via the website: There is the Wiki for the older Motive versions, which is hard to find. Then there is the documentation, where you can also switch to older Motive versions but it tends to be wrong because most of it is just copied from the newer versions, and then there is this forum. Do not add more software. Put effort into making the resources already available useful. Think of Discord as a chat and of this forum as an addition to documentation. You would not want to offer support on WhatsApp either.