Idea

[Death]

We set up either a Teamspeak or a Discord server so we can stay in contact when this forum eventually dies. We can shitpost all day there.

[Deleted]

Discord. I already am familiar with that one.

[Bannanachair]

I am not familiar with either.

[Pruz]

I'm not familiar with teamspeak.

[Deleted]

Discord is like Skype but way less annoying and there's no video chat.

[Bannanachair]

Jun 20, 2017 9:44:09 GMT -4 @nolongerthan20charas said:

Discord is like Skype but way less annoying and there's no video chat.

So it's basically just the shoutbox here?

[Pruz]

m.imgur.com/HYzSy2z,RAg5jUM

[Deleted]

Jun 20, 2017 9:55:47 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Jun 20, 2017 9:44:09 GMT -4 @nolongerthan20charas said:

Discord is like Skype but way less annoying and there's no video chat.

So it's basically just the shoutbox here?

Not quite. It has instant messages, which the shoutbox also has, but with Discord and other apps like it, it's easier to check if there are any new messages (you don't have to go to the bottom of a forum website any time you want to see what's going on) and you can opt for notifications, too, which makes it a lot easier and faster to tell if there's anything new.

Also, you can send pictures over the chat, and if there's a voice channel, you can talk with people too.

[Bannanachair]

Jun 20, 2017 9:59:48 GMT -4 Pruz said:

m.imgur.com/HYzSy2z,RAg5jUM

So it's a WhatsApp chat group that doesn't require a phone? I basically never use IM services for anything more than one-on-one conversations; they're extremely bloody difficult to use for anything more than that, or maybe a group of three people (myself included) at the very most.

[Deleted]

Jun 20, 2017 10:08:35 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Jun 20, 2017 9:59:48 GMT -4 Pruz said:

m.imgur.com/HYzSy2z,RAg5jUM

So it's a WhatsApp chat group that doesn't require a phone? I basically never use IM services for anything more than one-on-one conversations; they're extremely bloody difficult to use for anything more than that, or maybe a group of three people (myself included) at the very most.

Three people total, or three people active at a time? From my experience with messaging groups, there's usually only a few people active at once, even with large groups of members. If there's a time when the chat's too busy, you could do what I do and ignore the chat until it's not overwhelming.

[Death]

Well, I guess I'll get to work making a Discord then.

Any ideas for a name?

[Bannanachair]

This idea will kill the community faster than not implementing it will, and I'll explain why, but first, I'd like to acknowledge the problem that led to this proposal in the first place and examine the cause of it. The problem is the dwindling community here, and as you can see by looking at the "members" tab up top and the fact that the site's infrastructure was built to support lots of people (from all these subboards to the posts-as-currency, etc.) we've gone from a community of around 150 or so people to a small group of fewer than 30 but still more than 10 friends who occasionally talk about how things used to be better and crack puns. This is a problem which, depending on who you asked, either is killing or has already killed this community - I am not disputing that. However, to solve a problem, you have to look at it's cause.

The solution that you propose would only work if the cause was a forum-style format for our communications, which I don't think it is. The problem is caused by the fact that we no longer have new people coming in even though people are leaving at the same rate as they have always left, and that was caused by the move from ROBLOX to Bannanachair. If I'm getting the mechanics of this Discord thing correctly based on what you've seemed to be saying about it, that would give us a private shoutbox with no forum capabilities as opposed to a steady stream of new people to replace old ones who have left. That would not solve the problem. Further, I shall explain why it will kill what remains of the community as opposed to doing nothing by drawing from this community's history.

When we moved from ROBLOX to Bannanachair, not everyone came with us. People like Perambulation and Happy didn't join us in our exodus and stayed behind, effectively leaving the community. If we do that again and move to Discord, some people may not go for various reasons of their own, and the people on ROBLOX, unless we tell them, will have no way of knowing where we are. Then let's say that we let this pattern continue and the community moves from Discord to Website A for Reason X, but some people remain behind on Discord. Those who remained behind on Bannanachair would not know because the move would have been announced on Discord. Further, if people on website A decide to instead move to website B for reason Y and some remain behind and leave the community then people on Discord, Bannanachair and ROBLOX likely wouldn't know. Now, that being said, the obvious question arises as to why we moved here in the first place, and the answer to that is that the filter was killing us, and spammers were killing us and there was nothing we could do to prevent it - so we went and made a filterless forum which we could moderate to get rid of spam. If the people here dislike the format on the scale of not liking the filter on ROBLOX, I'll change it to avoid the community splintering like the last time I tried to run the Bannanachair forum and the Tavern split away.

So what is the solution to the problem? Honestly, I don't know, but moving to another site just for the hell of it is not that solution. Hell, I don't think that anyone knows that the solution to "people growing apart over time" is. Personally, if I come to the stage where I think the community on the bannanachair forums has died I do not know what I would do; I might do nothing, I might take drastic measures. What is more likely, however, is I will distribute an email to people I would like to retain regular contact with and then just go back to ROBLOX which, despite having the awful filter, still has the nostalgia component which an IM service would not have. (the email I'd distribute is [e-mail], by the way, just in case anyone wanted to take note of that for planning to leave the community but not me).

[Bannanachair]

That contained more words than initially expected and that was after me cutting out examples and extraneous arguments which didn't really do anything.

[Death]

Then what, pray tell, are we going to do about it? I'm simply suggesting what we could use when people just stop logging on here, because it'll happen eventually, and it's probably going to happen sooner rather than later. Unless all of us stop procrastinating and actually RP people have no reason to stay here other than to shitpost with some random assholes on the internet.

[Bannanachair]

Jun 20, 2017 10:45:34 GMT -4 Craxian said:

Jun 20, 2017 10:34:40 GMT -4 Death said:

Well, I guess I'll get to work making a Discord then.

Any ideas for a name?

Bannanachair?

I should've gotten a copyright when I plagiarized a "joke" from someone, retold it and then used the criticism of my retelling of the joke to make an online signature if you're going to be stealing the name Bannanachair from me!

[happy]

You know, the forum won't die, at least as fast, if you don't constantly point out that it's dying and therefore attempting to escape to some other chat platform so that can die too.

[Bannanachair]

Jun 20, 2017 10:47:03 GMT -4 Death said:

Then what, pray tell, are we going to do about it? I'm simply suggesting what we could use when people just stop logging on here, because it'll happen eventually, and it's probably going to happen sooner rather than later. Unless all of us stop procrastinating and actually RP people have no reason to stay here other than to shitpost with some random assholes on the internet.

What more incentive do they have to shitpost on Discord than here? That's what you're failing to sell me on.

[Bannanachair]

Jun 20, 2017 10:48:07 GMT -4 happy said:

You know, the forum won't die, at least as fast, if you don't constantly point out that it's dying and therefore attempting to escape to some other chat platform so that can die too.

Jesus Christ man, you somehow summed up my four paragraphs of criticism in a single sentence. I really need to learn to be more terse.

[Death]

Jun 20, 2017 10:48:08 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Jun 20, 2017 10:47:03 GMT -4 Death said:

Then what, pray tell, are we going to do about it? I'm simply suggesting what we could use when people just stop logging on here, because it'll happen eventually, and it's probably going to happen sooner rather than later. Unless all of us stop procrastinating and actually RP people have no reason to stay here other than to shitpost with some random assholes on the internet.

What more incentive do they have to shitpost on Discord than here? That's what you're failing to sell me on.

Because at least then it's easier to remain in contact.

[Death]

Jun 20, 2017 10:48:07 GMT -4 happy said:

You know, the forum won't die, at least as fast, if you don't constantly point out that it's dying and therefore attempting to escape to some other chat platform so that can die too.

Jesus fuck why are people suddenly getting so defensive about this forum not dying.

I was not saying we jump ship, I was simply suggesting that because it'd be easier to remain in contact jfc

[Bannanachair]

Jun 20, 2017 10:49:52 GMT -4 Death said:

Jun 20, 2017 10:48:08 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

What more incentive do they have to shitpost on Discord than here? That's what you're failing to sell me on.

Because at least then it's easier to remain in contact.

In what way is it easier to use an instant messaging service than a forum? I can, off the top of my head, think of about four or five different arguments for a forum, but I'm much too tired to do a formal debate or write as much as I did earlier, so I'll just do them in list form:

• They allow for categorization of ideas by topic - is the conversaion about the community itself or about something in your life, for instance?
• They allow easy reference for multiple conversations ongoing at once in the form of threads. If you want to talk about X and Y, just make one thread about X and another about Y and the conversation would be much easier to follow.
• It provides an easier archive of our conversations by topic, in chronological order and by who initiated them.
• If we ever do write roleplays or stories again, which we very well might do, being on one site instead of multiple is much more conducive to functioning as a community.
• If I don't want to read something on a forum I don't have to; if I don't want to read something on a chat group I still have to scroll through it no matter how long it is.

[Pruz]

Discord make beep when you get mention

[Bannanachair]

Jun 20, 2017 10:56:40 GMT -4 Pruz said:

Discord make beep when you get mention

Well that's another argument against it - I absolutely hate phone things that give me notifications (though that's just due to me being slightly whimsical and also not wanting to hear constant beeping while undertaking tasks).

[Pruz]

Jun 20, 2017 10:58:18 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Jun 20, 2017 10:56:40 GMT -4 Pruz said:

Discord make beep when you get mention

Well that's another argument against it - I absolutely hate phone things that give me notifications (though that's just due to me being slightly whimsical and also not wanting to hear constant beeping while undertaking tasks).

Then turn it off, the notification thing.

[Bannanachair]

Jun 20, 2017 10:59:30 GMT -4 Pruz said:

Jun 20, 2017 10:58:18 GMT -4 Bannanachair said:

Well that's another argument against it - I absolutely hate phone things that give me notifications (though that's just due to me being slightly whimsical and also not wanting to hear constant beeping while undertaking tasks).

Then turn it off, the notification thing.

Oh okay I guess I could do that too.