Join the Official Headphones.com Discord

That’s totally fine - it’s always up to you! We appreciate your feedback.

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FWIW Many of the same things are posted in both places. The same Bathy info and pics are here and on the discord. I wouldn’t sweat it.
People post the same info on other forums too.
Discord has been around for years and these places keep on kicking.

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I’m quite familiar with Discord. My son the graphic artist has been using it for years with the groups that he does work for. There is nothing wrong with it, however I am aware how forums ( & people ) change over time. Just leery of it in this context.

I hesitated to say anything at all, did not want to “rain on your parade”. @SebastienChiu one thing I was confident in is that The Headphones.com Community is OK with critical input. Now back to Audio & Headphones. I’m tinkering with a little balanced amp.

Mark Gosdin

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Of course! We are always okay with critical input, and appreciate how you framed it. Rest assured, we’re keeping ti in mind!

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Then I must ask: Why are both places needed or desired?

This requires two logins to create and maintain, double the time to post, double the time to read, and worst of all – reactions and comments get split between two sites…

Multi-posting across forums is common among hobby enthusiasts everywhere. As such, I tend to limit my own posts and regular reading to 1 to 3 “best” or favorite sites.

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There used to be a good reason for related chat areas. Back when I moderated conferences on BIX, access via Tymnet was $4 per hour, cheaper than long-distance dialup. As a moderator, my Tymnet was paid for by McGraw-Hill. Sometimes back then the hourly fee went away, and low monthly fees came in. Just around that time, they decided to add a chat section using code from Creative Computing that was modified to integrate with CoSy, (the forum software). This chat was moderated, and I was one of the moderators, able to open up chat for users. We could capture the chat buffer and post it.

We used chat for guest speaker events, and I recall opening it for general events the night the Berlin Wall came down. I spend about 8 hours moderating that chat. Taxi drivers went from West to East Berlin for the first time. It was amazing.

I also opened up when I was watching that World Series in California and there was an earthquake. People quickly came on, and some used it to let family know they were OK, as some phone infrastructure was destroyed. My favorite comment from that night was from a Californian who was at a McDonald’s when it happened. He felt it, then told the counter person, “I asked for a SMALL shake.”
California humor I know, but everyone was finding out how bad it was.

We ran regular hours and there were enough moderators to keep it open more as chat gained popularity with the decrease in prices. When I started, the Bix Blinker - an offline reader was very popular. It read topics downloaded, organized and let you reply offline. If you were a moderator you could create, merge, split as well. And covered private messaging.

If I wanted live chat, there was always IRC, and AOL Instant Messenger. In addition to the forum, it was fun to read UUNET, I spent hours reading the coldfusion posts for about a year, and some wag in the structured content community opened alt.sex.sgml which forced many professionals to read the development of html and xml in a place where their usernames were open to the alt.sex group, which really was pretty interesting at times. I might post more in an old-timers topic.

“Why are both places needed or desired?”

Practically, a Discord channel and a forum offer two different things.

  • One offers an entirely different experience and has different technology that allows for new forms of interaction that are physically impossible to offer on a forum.
  • The other is a tried and true method that will not be taken away - it is here to stay, soo there should be no fear.

Empathetically, there are other reasons as well:

  • There is an entirely different generation and customer base that only uses Discord. To reach both, we need to offer both.
  • The live experience of Discord encourages closer community interaction and engagement, resulting in a stronger relationship between members and our staff.

Simply put, too many positive reasons warrant having a Discord channel for us not to have it.

I would encourage trying it out for a week and letting it sit with you to see how you like living with it.

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Twitch streams? Where bikini girls sit in hot tubs and livestream as they play video games? :rofl: :exploding_head: :face_with_spiral_eyes:

That makes sense. Business decision. Go for it, I wish you the best.

Unlikely. I swore off live, interactive real-time platforms sometime in the 1990s IRC era. I tried them for far longer than a week, and I’ve tried others from time to time later. They are way way way way way too intrusive, disruptive, and focus-breaking. Even today I struggle (and often fail) to turn off Microsoft’s intrusive email/chat popups. The mute function often doesn’t work.

Sample IRC chat (saw 1,000 times):

“Hey, what’s up?”
“Nothing. How about you?”
“Not much here either.”
“I’m going to lunch now. Back in a bit.”

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Discord’s topic-based channels tend towards a bit more…topicality than the IRCs of old. It’s not the format for everybody, of course, and I wouldn’t suggest it for folks that don’t like live chatting, but it is a bit different to older live chats I’ve used, at least in the communities I’m on in Discord (which is quite a few).

So far the discord is bathy jokes. I will probably not be super active there as I need less distraction in my life. I get the feeling this is how zoomers adjust to and use technology, different strokes for different folks. As long as the ca-1a measurements are posted here we are good.

Here’s a meme I posted there.
image

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As somebody who is already a member of several Discord servers (a local film photography club, a university research group, and the remainder related to SFF computers), I am cautiously optimistic about the official Discord and will try to keep an open mind about it (despite probably not being a member of the target demographic). If properly organized and moderated, a Discord server compliments a forum. If not, it devolves into a real-time version of Reddit / internet version of Mos Eisley.

Based upon past experiences, I think it’ll take about six months to a year for the server to settle down before we know how successful it is, depending on the metrics used.

Regards,
Vic

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Personally I’ve really enjoyed the Discord so far. No real complaints, everyone’s been quite nice and toxicity is at a minimum. Love seeing the team post measurements and having discussion with my favorite reviewers too :slight_smile:

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Threads like this are always fun. As if we could recommend music between the ages.

I use classic (to my generation) music. Stones, Dead, Floyd, Chicago, are just so many names to my nieces and nephews.

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This afternoon, as I listened to Ziggy Stardust I wondered how many millennials would recognize the words “Time takes a cigarette and sticks it in your mouth. . .”

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Yeah, it’s like a twilight zone moment when you say Beatles and they go blank.

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Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello, Raphael

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Us Millenials can be a lot more cultured than at first glance :slight_smile:

Michaelangelo - What band was he in again?

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I wasn’t trying to be judgemental or lable everyone of a given age.

Was trying to say it has happeneded to me and it’s a bit reality bending.

No offense taken at all!