I tried discord for a day or two, I really did. And while my brain didn’t literally explode, it was close. It’s not a medium that will work for everyone, so I hope it does not become something like *the room where it happens*. That would exclude a lot of voices, and the game would suffer, as we can see, I think.

Discord is great and way more active than the forums. Not sure why there is so much negativity directed towards it. It serves a different purpose than the forums and is a great way to build community. It's basically a combination of the forums and sitemail, in a more mobile friendly format. It's also an easier way for new users to get immediate feedback and should help with user retention.

My favorite thing about the Discord is the ability to have one on one chats. Sitemail is great but it's a little unwieldy, especially on a phone. I've had more meaningful chats on there than years of using sitemail. You could even mute most or all of the Discord channels and just be on there for the chat feature.

I think what a lot of people prefer about the forums is that you can check in every now and then and follow along to the 10-20 people posting. And the thread topics are (supposed to be) more direct. My reason for leaving prior, is because I prefer smaller groups. I have plenty of group chats with HD friends, long before discord. And I love it. I don't feel the need always get feedback from 100s of coaches.

The discord is so large, that if you post in the morning, and come back at night (say after work), there could be 100s of posts since your last post on a busy day. So it can be overwhelming for some. I love to chat and be social. But sometimes, I'm ok with hearing the thoughts and comments from 5 people, rather than 100 people.

All that said, I do feel discord is good for the game. And you can sift thru whatever you choose to, as you mentioned. But sometimes a coach may not mesh well with another coach. There's some guys here in the forums that I love to banter and argue with. There's posts here that I love to read and learn from. There's some guys that post that don't post things that I'm interested in reading (not that there's anything wrong with that coach, maybe we just don't cross paths in HD ever, and don't talk about similar things). So to multiply this times a LOT (the number of humans in the discord), i can see easily how it can be overwhelming for a coach with a certain personality.

We're all different characters here. As long as we have forums, sitemail, discord, conference chats, off site chats, or any other way to communicate that I left off, I think everyone can find what works for them and be happy playing the game we love.