AutoHotkey Community

Hi.

For well over a year, we've had an unofficial discord server. It's been mostly abandoned but recently we added the discord invite link to the stickied Ask For Help thread.
As a result there's activity in the channel and we have people coming in for help daily, currently more than in the IRC.

So I'm proposing a vote on making this the official Discord server for AHK.

We have Discord roles for forum admins and mods. Join the server and we'll add you to your role. It would be awesome having more forum staff in the server.
It's an excellent place to hang out, chat and help out new people, so join us!

I'm not calling it a replacement for the IRC channel(s). The fact is very many people use/have discord so it's easy to reach. Many also appreciate the modernistic features.

Invite link: https://discord.gg/0eAZhRs7dgWmObae
I recommend downloading the client: https://discordapp.com/

Vote will remain open for three weeks.

o/
RUNIE

I'm going to hate on you and say that IRC is better. (jk)

fk discord

long live IRC

If ahk can have another outlet let it, however I am slightly opposed to having an official outlet that can be closed by a single user, not that this is impossible with the forum.

Well it is possible for every outlet we have - and probably is going to be possible for every new outlet we gain.

also, Rune didn't create the discord, tomoe did. so she might still be hidden admin or something (probably not). or the account might be tied tied to her name (not sure). so there's (probably) 2 people incharge of the place. but I guess either one of them could delete it. but as mentioned, that can happen to the forum too. and both IRC channels. and pretty much any website or business. kinda seems like a weird thing to worry about when it can happen to nearly everything.

tidbit wrote:also, Rune didn't create the discord, tomoe did. so she might still be hidden admin or something (probably not). or the account might be tied tied to her name (not sure). so there's (probably) 2 people incharge of the place. but I guess either one of them could delete it. but as mentioned, that can happen to the forum too. and both IRC channels. and pretty much any website or business. kinda seems like a weird thing to worry about when it can happen to nearly everything.

Yes, tomoe is server owner/creator. Only she has the ability to delete the server (not that she will/wants to.)
I have admin status and do moderation, I can't edit the admin role or do drastic stuff like delete the channel.

But again, it's a kinda pointless to discuss because as said, nearly everything has a "single point of failure".

I'm not interested in both. I think that one 'official' chat channel is enough. And I'm strictly against the use of chat channels as a replacement / bypassing for the 'official' support forums.

just me wrote:I'm not interested in both. I think that one 'official' chat channel is enough. And I'm strictly against the use of chat channels as a replacement / bypassing for the 'official' support forums.

I respect this opinion. However, I think it is flawed.

In my eyes, the discord is not a replacement for neither the IRC or the forums. The main intention is to have a place for the community to chat. If someone comes by with an issue, of course we will try to help. But the discord (or the IRC for that matter) is not created and maintained solely to be a live support platform.

Support has it's place on the forums, where questions and answers are stored and people can later look them up.

I think that we as a community should always work on expanding ourselves and reach new members.
Not every member and every question/problem fits into this forum. Sometimes the solution to that is just switching channels.
Of course it is better when the knowledge accumulates in a place and in a way where everyone can easily access it - however the forums are just a means to that end.

@Run1e: You removed the part of the OP my answer relates to. Why?

@nnnik: I'm talking about AHK scripting related questions. I cannot imagine any which wouldn't 'fit into this forum', except a violation of forum rules.

The most common case is that someone is working on a larger project and needs some help with code design or some basic know hows on how to work with a certain API.
These are often minor and very specific questions but come in larger quantity. You don't want to make a post for every ingle one and then wait for hours for a response - it just breaks the flow, you can't work like that.
The second thing, would be newbies, that are not yet able to completely formulate a question in the Ask for Help forum in a way that invites answers.
Lastly there are people working together on projects. Sometimes you just need to discuss things - having an official channel for that sure helps.

just me wrote:@Run1e: You removed the part of the OP my answer relates to. Why?

I didn't remove anything, I changed one word. Specifically "official discord channel" to "official discord server". Someone pointed it out to me and I changed it.
Either you misunderstood something or I formulated something badly. Please clarify what you thought I removed.

just me wrote:@nnnik: I'm talking about AHK scripting related questions. I cannot imagine any which wouldn't 'fit into this forum', except a violation of forum rules.

I think the more important part is to focus on that some people simply don't like forums and prefer being in a chat room talking to people in real time. Why not have that option open to them if people are willing to help?

@nnnik: Excellent points, I agree with all of them.

The more user involvement, the better. If this promotes AHK, then why not?

So the vote ended with more than half voting yes (and only 15% being directly against it.)

Could we hear what tank and the staff thinks?

I said yes, but I don't see how "official" it can be. I don't see why not, or why tank would disagree with this. :/
I can mention it on the homepage. Do i or tank have admin access to this?

The IRC Channel link at the top should be renamed to: IRC/Discord Channels

I can do that. What do I link it to?

As I understand it, the amount of items in the navbar is held down because of trying to make the navbar look good on smaller screens/mobile devices.
So what I suggest is we rename "IRC Channel" to something else and make it a dropdown (like 'Members') and give it the following items:

• "IRC" - Links to the Ask For Help thread it currently links to.
  "Discord" - Link directly to the Discord invite link.
  "Reddit" - Links to the AutoHotkey subreddit which I personally believe could use a bit of love.

Crucial information about the IRC is provided in the Ask For Help thread. However when a new user joins the Discord server, they get messaged by a bot telling them to read the rules and tips we have on the server. Therefore linking the Discord item to the Ask For Help thread is unnecessary, as all information new users needs are given on the server. For the curious, here is what the user is told to read upon joining.

Either that or create separate items for IRC and Discord, it wouldn't really take up that much space in the navbar.

Very true. I was thinking something much simpler. Something like Chat which links to a locked thread proving links to discord, irc, etc. Either way, on the mobile the theme automatically makes a drop down.