While I've spent several hours over the past few days trying to figure out how the various functions of the various existing programs work, as I've made quite little progress in understanding why my implementations of the functions break so often, perhaps a Discord server (or some other real-time communication method) could be created to complement the forum? While I could ask each and every question here, not only would many of them be so insignificant as to be a waste of an entire thread, but the frequency at which I would have questions would lend itself more to a real-time form of communication, such as a Discord server. In addition to allowing developers to share projects and ideas with each other more easily, perhaps it could be expanded later on to include other Thumby-related channels?

I'd be in favor of a simple Discord server as well, official or unofficial.

I know the TinyCircuits team is small and has a lot of responsibilities already so I'm not sure they want to tack on chatroom moderation to that.

@TinyCircuits, are you planning to create some sort of TinyCircuits Discord soon? If not, maybe we can create an unofficial one?

Ive been wondering this as well. I was also thinking maybe a subreddit.

Hello all!

Thank you so much for your interest in chatting with us and others about Thumby!

We have been strongly entertaining the idea of having a TinyCircuits Discord Server. We think it would be beneficial to have one and are looking to start one soon - it will likely be announced via a Kickstarter update, but we are internally discussing the best way to merge/differentiate it with our existing community channels like the forum, and defining what specific role it should serve.

It's a big step to take on what could be a big responsibility for a tiny team, so we appreciate your patience as we work to bring a TinyCircuits Discord server to the public sometime soon!

Let me know if you all have any tips on how to make a good Discord server - we would love the feedback since some of us are new to Discord.

Cheers,
Réna

While the many Discord servers out there have many different configurations, I'll give a few suggestions based on similar servers and my experience with Discord server moderation:

- In terms of how channels should be grouped, taking into consideration how this forum is currently structured, I would suggest having:

• A  Server Information or Welcome section that would include server "infrastructure" channels, such as those for server rules and general announcements.
• A  TinyCircuits section that would include discussion and support channels for TinyCircuits as a whole.
• Sections dedicated to each currently-supported product, such as Thumby and TinyTV, with each having a general discussion channel, and additional channels such as "support" or "development" for the sections that have sufficient levels of community participation to warrant channel "specialization".
• Language-specific and voice channels could also be channels to consider at some point after the initial creation of the Discord server should there be a purpose and sufficient moderation capabilities for them.

- In terms of roles, I would imagine that as this would be an official TinyCircuits Discord server, the top role would be something along the lines of "TinyCircuits Staff", or something. A way to let people know who is and isn't part of your team. Next down the totem pole, as you mentioned that the responsibility of moderating a Discord server would be a big one for your small team, perhaps consider inviting community members to serve as volunteer moderators, as many communities have. In terms of regular members, while some form of Kickstarter-Discord integration for having roles for backers might be something to look into, as this wouldn't apply to backers of your prior campaigns, I might suggest something both simpler and open to everyone, such as letting users pick a rank based on which color Thumby they have, with custom emojis added for each color to complement the ranks.

- Otherwise, it could be used in many ways like any other social media platform, such as having events to improve community engagement, with the difference being the greater opportunity for interaction and collaboration with and among members.

Hello all!

Thank you so much for your interest in chatting with us and others about Thumby!

We have been strongly entertaining the idea of having a TinyCircuits Discord Server. We think it would be beneficial to have one and are looking to start one soon - it will likely be announced via a Kickstarter update, but we are internally discussing the best way to merge/differentiate it with our existing community channels like the forum, and defining what specific role it should serve.

It's a big step to take on what could be a big responsibility for a tiny team, so we appreciate your patience as we work to bring a TinyCircuits Discord server to the public sometime soon!

Let me know if you all have any tips on how to make a good Discord server - we would love the feedback since some of us are new to Discord.

Cheers,
Réna

As a discord moderators, id definitely recommend Dyno, which is a very high quality moderation bot. Also maybe channel with downloadable games. Maybe roles for specific devices, such as a Thumby role etc...

Exciting!

My thoughts on how it would differentiate between the forum, Github, KS comments, etc is primarily:

• Having a real-time way to chat. The forum, github, and KS comments aren't really good for having casual conversations
• Having a lower friction way for new developers to get started. My experience is that many people getting into a new "thing" will find a Discord server for it and ask for help there because chatrooms tend to be friendlier to novices since the conversations are more ephemeral.
• As a result, it keeps the forum tidier for longer-form posts, discussions, releases, and tutorials/guides

Hey everyone!

We didn't forget about the discord server, we've just been busy with all the logistics of the Kickstarter and getting parts, figuring out assembly steps, etc.

Here's our initial discord server you can join and chat in: https://discord.gg/vzf3wQXVvm (edited to make this link never expire)

Please please please let us know if you have any feedback or if you see any issues with the setup. We're new to discord so be gentle with us!

Best,
Réna