Would a Discord be better?

Martin_212020

TBH I rarely come on here, and it doesn't seem to be a particularly vibrant place (partly why I rarely come here!). Would us having a Discord just be plain better? Different channels for different topics, with pinned posts to key Chefsteps content etc, they could ping us when there's new stuff, etc etc?

I think it's telling that at the bottom of Studio Pass emails it says,

"Join the conversation with the ChefSteps community on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have questions, write to our support team. They can help."

Which highlights how insignificant this forum is (I realise the above are the official accounts/ways to interact with the company, but still I think it'd be good for everyone for there to be a social space linked to Chefsteps).

Edit :: For example, I just made an extremely basic one here, https://discord.gg/gMnFSCTrJ7 (can remove 'ChefSteps' if necessary/hand over control if they want to moderate it or whatever). Feel free to suggest channels etc which'd be useful.

Find more posts tagged with

Forum Talk

Comments

brian_martin2001

Why would moving something that's not particularly active to a new platform be beneficial? Is it exclusively to get an alert if someone makes a post?

Jack_Lawrence_155138

I deleted my Facebook account a while back so I lost access to the ChefSteps community, which was pretty disappointing. I agree these forums are not great, but I also agree with Brian that I'm not sure Discord is the answer. The community unfortunately chose Facebook, and I'm skeptical that fragmenting it will work out. That said, I don't want to discourage discussion of this issue—perhaps there are other solutions.

Martin_212020

Well, I'm in a couple where there's more conversational stuff etc and seems to lead to more organic discussions which are interesting. Probably helps that people tend to be in numerous Discord groups so are logged in to look at various things and happen to post in x, y, and z... as opposed to here where you have to log into a niche, single use forum where nothing's happening... so you don't get that natural activity. So it's not just moving something that's not active to somewhere else, it's doing that and it becoming more active. (NB. I dunno the demographics when it comes to Discord use!)

I know there's the Cook with Joule Facebook, but not that into Facebook anymore, nor the fact the group is obviously based around a timeline.

I'm not saying it's a magical solution, and as @Jack_Lawrence_155138 says perhaps there are other solutions and that's really the aim... perhaps finding something which works better. Maybe if there was a Discord benefit to Studio Pass that'd help? So there could be channels which only subscribers could see/participate in... might add value for not much work if say ChefSteps staff answering questions and stuff sometimes.

I think I mainly miss talking about food now I have an office job rather than working as a chef! And if I try eg. Reddit pages I seem to end up seeing sous vide zealots obsessing over the lowest temps for the longest times, or a million posts a week where someone's cooked a plain steak lols. That's all well and good, but I - and I'm sure many other people - aren't just interested in that, and instead got interested in ChefSteps because of interesting techniques/modernist stuff/etc.

Jack_Lawrence_155138

Yeah I totally relate to what you're saying here. The ChefSteps community has always been a notch above the general reddit/Facebook sous vide groups, with (mostly) respectful and insightful science-backed discussion. Personally, I also think Discord is a great platform for this kind of thing. I like the idea of an exclusive studio pass channel within a larger public Discord setup, I'm just skeptical of it getting critical mass.

I think it would be useful if someone could talk to the Cook with Joule FB group admins and see if they have any thoughts. I suspect their concerns would be:

Fragment the community + content
Worse discoverability; nearly everyone across all demographics have FB accounts but I suspect the segments that already use Discord or won't be annoyed using both Discord and FB is fairly small.

I think we could sell it pretty well though. Admins have far more control with Discord. The UI is much simpler for new users, with more obvious search features, post pinning, and linking that will help prevent the deluge of repetitive questions they get all day. Discussions can be organized into channels instead of one giant timeline. It's also not necessarily a replacement for the FB group—I suggest we instead sell it as a complement to the FB group as a way for people to chat live, and then let it grow organically over time and see what happens.

Martin_212020

Yeah, all valid, but I do think it'd occupy a different 'space' to the Facebook group so might work and wouldn't cause meaningful fragmentation. I was frankly very surprised to see it has over 20k members... if even just 1% of them were active on the Discord that could easily work.

Then with there potentially being Studio Pass only channels etc that could be a driver for people to join (if ChefSteps were interested and wanted some control of it etc they could then maybe mention it in newsletters etc, although they might prefer people talking in the comments bit at the bottom of recipes on the website).

fisher23

Jack, I have always appreciated your input. I was sad to see you leave FB, but I totally understand. I would love to this forum get reinvigorated rather than try to start over again. There is so much information contained here, albeit not really user friendly.

Jack_Lawrence_155138

Thanks John, it’s always great to hear from you. I’m skeptical that we can get CS to fix/update the forum software at this point, but I’m also not sold it would do us any good if they did. The FB group already enables asynchronous communication and sharing, and I suspect that intentionally competing with it won’t get us anywhere.

I’m coming around to Martin’s idea of using Discord. What if we could offer a space that complements FB where people can go if they need live real time help, or they just want to have a conversation about something without feeling the pressure of posting to a 20,000-person group. Maybe they want to collaborate with a subset of the group on a project or topic like curing or aging, or they want a separate space where beginners can ask questions. Maybe they want live feedback on their steak searing skills or they want to share a live feed of their Soufflé rising in the oven. With Discord all of that is possible. FB is still there when you want to share with everyone, quickly post and browse high quality photos, tag your friends and family, run polls, or have an asynchronous conversation.

My other suggestion would be Slack, only because it’s probably more well-known/popular at this point. I think the Discord app is better and unlike Slack Discord supports live video streaming, but I’m flexible.

What do you think? Would the FB group admins be receptive to something like this? What problems do admins face managing, moderating, and organizing the community? What problems do users face with participating in the community?

wolfiegirl

I couldn't agree more. I had a forums on fb (after Cook with Joule etal) but ditched it and went back to a forum where each subject has it's own sub-forum. VERY organized and VERY easy to use. The fb forum isn't really a forum for more than chatting. SO glad I got as far from FB as was humanly possible! Here's a quick shot of what I'm talking about....

Jack_Lawrence_155138

Yeah the lack of categorization on FB, especially when you have tens of thousands of members, just does not work.

Jack_Lawrence_155138

@John_Fisher_218893 Did you have an opportunity to consider my questions yet?