DMs, chat rooms or Discord? Help me pick how we connect next.

Posted by Ken Deckinger in General on the Big Photo Hunt community board, .

Hey everyone!

Over the past couple of months I’ve talked with a lot of you, and there have been some great posts here about finding more ways to connect with each other. This is at the top of my list, so I'd love your input on where to focus.

Here are the three ideas I’m kicking around:

1. Direct Messaging - Private 1:1 messages with members, right here on Big Photo Hunt. 2. Chat Rooms (Discord-style) - Personal group rooms created by you and/or BPH here on BPH. 3. A BPH Discord server: A community space on Discord (a separate app) instead of on the site itself.

Reply with 1, 2 or 3 and/or any additional comments you'd like me to think about!

Hybrid idea? Something I'm not thinking of? Anything goes!

Thank you for being a part of our community!

:-) Ken

Replies

Bayu Dharmaputra on

1 for me too

Kevin Maschke on

I would probably go with 2, with 1 maybe added afterwards? The reason being that I believe it's the best to keep users on BPH, while still having a broader way to create or improve the community. I would actually say that instead of being Discord style chatrooms, a forum like platform would be better. Something like Flarum (https://flarum.org/) or Discourse (https://github.com/discourse/discourse) for example, with defined sections/categories. Which is actually the current Boards 🤣 – my brain realised this after hitting send lol.

As for the other options:

1 - I feel would be too narrowed down. Yes, individuals could talk to each other, but there wouldn't really be a sense of community.

3 - I'm part of more than a few Discord Servers, and it's great, mainly because those communities ONLY have discord, and no other platform/app. But, I feel people would end up sharing photos there more than on BPH itself, and the risk of losing people on this website would increase, in my opinion. I've been part of a few photo communities on Discord and people tend to divagate more and more.

Lee Churchill on

1 for me, I use discord and find it easy to get lost or miss stuff

Kevin Maschke on

@Kevin Maschke @Ken Deckinger
After hitting send on my reply, and realising that the number 2 I described is basically the current Boards system...

I'd probably be more in favour of number 1, and maybe a chatroom system but that's not always open? That works for specific events and stuff?

Ken Deckinger on

@Lee Churchill thanks for the feedback Lee!