Moving to Discord
| Status | Driver | Approver | Contributors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pending | Qin Guan | NA | Qin Guan |
Situation
There are too many WhatsApp chats - one is created for every batch and the maintenance of it is high:
- Workshop announcements need to be sent to at least 3 chats
- It is hard to keep track of alumni, or even members
In giant WhatsApp chats such as ours (i.e. > 100 members), people generally don't talk and treat it as an "announcement" chat.
Background
The reasons for having numerous WhatsApp chats is largely historical. For a good period of time, WhatsApp was the defacto for communication within groups.
Assessment
WhatsApp is no longer a great platform for engaging with the Overflow community. Competitors like Telegram and Discord have continuously added new features like polls, bots, automation, that simply is not possible to do in a WhatsApp chat.
This, combined with the fact that members rarely use the chats, is not helpful in our efforts to increase member engagement. We want to have members that are actively participating in Overflow, but we have to provide them the platform.
Recommendation
I recommend using Discord as the official platform for all things Overflow.
Most of the administrative setup is done, it is more a matter of informing the members, and coming up with a plan for better community outreach.
Created: August 23, 2024