Flight Rising Discussion

Forms I got personal issues with discord
It exists as a reminder of my past mistakes
Would rather leave it in the dust

I think both have their utility, though I do agree with others that I find Discord to be a much more high stress environment. I don't touch the big all-flight ones or the ones for larger flights I've been in because they're just too overwhelming and I don't like that people can see when I've joined the channel/come online and potentially call me out before I've had my requisite lurking/adjustment time.

The smaller and less demanding ones are nice though to be able to communicate more quickly and get to know people - though to be fair the same level of communication used to be very much possible on the forums. Part of why I like FR is that it still has at least some forum activity, which I miss from Earlier Internet Days. I just find it much more manageable and I like that topics and thoughts are organized into different threads and not all jumbled together like on...basically all popular social media and Discord at this point. And I like that it enables longer and more detailed responses, I rarely feel I can put all my thoughts together in a short enough format for most other media these days.

As a historian, I do also worry about the archival issues inherent in Discord and things like it - there are whole parts of this sites social (not to mention dom) history that are entirely inaccessible and likely doomed to be forgotten now, compared to there being parts of 2013/2014 history where we can still link directly to the appropriate thread. Not that everything needs to be preserved in perpetuity, but I do think there will be unforeseen consequences going forward for our ability to look back accurately on events that have happened, data that's been collected, relationships formed. There are already people on my friends list from 2015/2016ish whom I have no memory of and had no interaction with on the forums so I can't go back and jog my memory.

I definitely prefer forums! Discord just goes too fast for me and can get overwhelming at times (aka checking a server and seeing how many conversations you've missed out on, jokes you aren't going to get because you weren't there, missing an important announcement etc.) Forums tend to be a bit slower and more manageable for me, and threads can last for days if not weeks. It allows me to take my time with joining in on certain conversations, instead of feeling like when I blink I'll miss it.

(also with discord it all feels more personal and you have to respond a lot quicker but with forums i can take my time coming up with a response that doesn't make me sound like a complete idiot)