Moving from Discord to BlaB - is it desirable?

[Kalamere]

The TL;DR version of this post is this: I need to know if you all are even interested in making the move from Discord to BlaB, or if me spending a whole lot of time writing code for it is just going to be a wasted effort.

--

Ok, here's the long winded version:

Most probably know, but for those who do not, I am not a software engineer. It is not my college background nor have I ever had any formal training in the field. I do work in the tech industry, but I'm an Operations guy and a manager at that (though I was a systems administrator before moving into management). I picked up a little bit of coding through that aspect of my job, as all SAs do, to make things easier. That's a far cry from full software design and development though.

The reason I mention this is because I am frankly not positive I can write the code for dueling on BlaB. You're going to have to trust me when I tell you that it is very different from what I pulled together for Discord dueling and that Discord provided me tools that did a lot of the heavy lifting. Maybe I can. I've not looked at the base code yet, so I'm not ruling it out and I am generally willing to try my hand at anything. What you should know though are 2 things. (a) IF I can do it, it isn't going to be fast. We're talking many months, just due to other things I've got going on and then trying to learn a new code base and how to work with it. (b) Also that there will not be a good mobile version... at least not from the jump. I've coded lots of web pages in the past. That I can do. But I've only ever designed for desktop browsers. Making display work well in a mobile browser is something of a different beast. Again, I can try to figure it out, but if mobile is important to you for dueling purposes - I'm probably not the right guy to be looking to for this.

Alright, so there's the down side of having me onboard as your developer. On the bright side, my work comes free and I'm willing to give it a shot

The other downside I feel compelled to bring up, and which I need to hear from you all on, is that I've seen a lot of debate around the use of discord vs a site based chat. Some people feel pretty strongly moving to discord was a giant step forward for our community. I know Amal very much wants to bring chat home to an onsite system for the control we have and because BlaB brings back some features we don't have in Discord (man, I miss color). Now, ultimately, Amal owns the site so obviously has a very significant voice in how we move forward. If I'm going to be taking months to write some code though, I want to know if it is a thing a majority of people even want. Otherwise I risk wasting a ton of time to create something that not only isn't desirable, but which has a negative result and either schisms or outright kills our community. I've heard some of our more prevalent participants say they'd rather pack it in than to move back from Discord. I'd like to have that discussion before I commit to anything.

Kinda like the IFL thread I posted recently looking to gauge interest. I'm willing to run the league, but not if we don't have the people because then it's just a waste of my time getting the site together, etc. Same applies here. I'm willing to tinker with code, but if people are against the move then I'm going to find something more productive to sink my time into.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your responses. I understand that there are some strong feelings on the topic of where we chat, but I would ask that anyone responding please make an effort to be civil. If you care enough to read this and care enough to write out your thoughts, then it means you give a damn about our play here. That's important and we should recognize that in each other as we respond.

Thanks,
~Kal

eta: this query is in response to Amal's post last week in regard to BlaB coming to RoH.

[JewellRavenlock]

I see why BlaB is desirable as far as the forum integration goes. It not only provides a more seamless experience for users in many ways, it also requires less of transition period for those of us used to (and still mourning) the loss of Flash Chat because of the similarities to that beloved chat client.

Also, color.

That said, I don't see BlaB as a step in the right direction for the community. Instead, it's more of the same-old same-old for the community. It's a restoring things to the way they were a few months ago so we can go back to maintaining a status quo that, let's be honest, is actually a state of rapid decline for the community.

If the idea is to get us back to where we were before Flash Chat died, then BlaB is the way to go, but that is really not where we want to be, is it? What benefit is there to having a chat on this dying forum that few if any people have joined (independent from Dragon's Mark) for a long time? What good is it to have a set of calling tools when we don't have callers to use them?

How many nights were fully staffed with callers when Flash Chat went down?

There are things I don't love about Discord. I am still adapting to using it for live play, but you know? It took me a long time to adapt to Flash Chat when we made the move off AOL. I didn't really care for it at the time, honestly. I missed AOL chatrooms, but that doesn't mean Flash Chat on the web wasn't the right move for the community.

I'll get used to Discord just like I got used to Flash Chat. I have to and I'm willing to because I believe it's where the future of this community lies (if we want it to have a future). We have automated calling tools that make our inability to find new callers and keep the ones we have from getting burnout a non-issue. It is great on mobile devices. I can duel on my phone or tablet. It is managed and regularly updated by an independent company, freeing our tech-minded friends to work on tools for in-game instead of chat maintenance and also freeing them to maybe actually have a chance to play now and then.

Discord is the future of RP on the internet period. There is a huge RP community already on Discord. For me, that's invaluable because it means we have the potential to not only stop our decline but grow for the first time in who knows how long. To me, ignoring the fact that Discord is the place to RP these days would be like insisting on playing in a web based chat back in AOL heyday. If we want to survive, we need to be where the people are. We can't expect them to come to us.

[Mallory]

I am not interested in making the move from Discord to BlaB.

Discord is well-designed for mobile and actively updated, with apps for Android and iOS, which is good for users who increasingly rely on phones and tablets for internet use, as well as providing an alternative when a user experiences an internet outage. It also means that those who use the mobile app on a device they take with them have Discord always on, and can receive notifications, message friends, drop into the lobby to chat, and see what's happening on the server. I can speak only to my own experiences, but I have been browsing the internet on my phone before, seen activity or someone seeking it via the app, and decided to either play there or on my desktop -- a piece of hardware that I increasingly use for gaming instead of casual internet use. And while websites can be used to see active users in a live chat, I am more likely to be checking Discord to keep up with lobby conversations and IMs with friends and see activity that way.

Duels are faster and easier on Discord, and in the last four months I have easily participated in more duels than in the preceding decade when I first tried it. This difference in speed was enough that I took another look at dueling and decided, "I can invest the time to sit down and learn this." It also allows callers to take on more of a hosting role, focusing on promoting play and arranging matches like Eden does on Fight Night and Conner at the Hold; and managing the bracket, fielding questions, and helping new players join in the fun during tournaments. During the All Ranks Tournament on Sunday night, we had 9 players compete in 16 matches and saw room activity until after 1:00 ET.

In addition to dueling, Discord has allowed me to do more to promote RP, such as having announcement channels where notifications are easily visible to people in the lobby (a dot by a channel denotes recent activity, useful for drawing people directly into the IC channels, too). I helped put together the non-dueling IC channels with community input, and doing this on Discord allows me to be able to edit the pinned setting descriptions on the fly for updates such as the Golden Perch's Hall of Fame bulletin board; as well as adding event pins to whatever channel is being used for a specific event, whether it means decorations or strange creatures temporarily appearing in an existing setting, or if the channel is being used as a stand-in for another location (such as when the Annex is used for the Hold).

I want to call out Trivia Night specifically, because having run it multiple times on Discord and having tested BlaB, I can tell you that I would not be able to run it on BlaB. Being able to flip seamlessly between the room and message tabs and take note of the order in which messages come in, in addition to having an efficient and well-designed messaging interface, is essential to being able to quickly and accurately score answers while keeping up with the flow of play in the room at the same time. At the end of it, the winner has an unflattering picture of their faceclaim added to the "Hall of Fame" -- a Google Doc linked in the pin for the setting -- and they get to pick a custom emoji for the server. Those are just fun little things, but I think taken all together, they say a lot for the agility and flexibility of this platform.

The hard work of Kalamere and Jake (looking at you, Fistmelda bot) using the Discord API has provided the server with powerful tools that can call duels, list ranks and profile information, tell you the weather, set your RP or LFD status, set and display more detailed RP status, crawl the logs, pour you a beer, and headbutt you if you ask for an autograph. Many of the bot changes have been made with player input, and it's been exciting to see those changes being discussed and coming to life.

Also, I think Jewell's right about Discord being the future of RP. I have been paying attention to RhyDin-affiliated Facebook groups, and seemingly spurred in part by the death of AIM, there has been a large movement of players, and people seeking to return to play, to Discord. As a platform it is very different from FlashChat; but FlashChat is very different from AIM, WinMX, MUDs, and other places where I played before coming here. Each had its own quirks, but I learned and adapted by using them, and I have found that overall, Discord is a platform that is well-suited to FFRP.

We have been able to draw in new players to both play and duel, because people are actively looking for servers where there are no application requirements or genre restrictions and that have active play; and I know we could draw in more if we could definitively say "this is a permanent space for live play" and commit ourselves to promoting this server on Facebook groups, on large RP servers with advertising channels, and on sites that aggregate Discord RP servers.

There has been a lot of work already put into this server, and we have seen wonderful results from that work. Shuttering Rings of Discord and using BlaB on Rings of Honor makes zero sense if our aim is to survive long-term and grow our community.

[Canaan]

The TL;DR version of this post is this: I need to know if you all are even interested in making the move from Discord to BlaB, or if me spending a whole lot of time writing code for it is just going to be a wasted effort.

In short: I believe your time and energy will be wasted in writing anything for Blab.

Months and months to write code? That's ridiculous. For you, I mean. There's already something that works -- and works really well. Why waste months of your time on a possibility? The duels were dying before Flash Chat went the way of the dinosaurs. But I've seen it coming back to life since the move to Discord.

I don't duel and have no desire to pick it back up for reasons, so my opinion doesn't hold much weight. I know that. But as a Caller, I know first hand the trouble we'd have attempting to utilize the PM system that is currently available on Blab while we wait for the possibility of a calling tool. There will be much frustration. I certainly could not be persuaded to call duels on Blab the way things are now, so there's one less Caller who will return.

Everyone knows my opinion on Blab. For regular RP, I think it's great. I wish people would play there. But for dueling? Discord's the answer.

[Kalamere]

Just to clarify, because I think I stated this poorly, I say months and months because I have other things going on that will keep me from dedicating large volumes of time towards this for a while. Mostly real job things (and possible new job) that will take up most of my coding time. Once I really have the time to dedicate I think it'll be anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months depending on how complicated it turns out to be. It's likely at least 6 months before I can get something out, but that doesn't mean I'll be solidly coding for six months. Hope that makes sense.

[Canaan]

Just to clarify, because I think I stated this poorly, I say months and months because I have other things going on that will keep me from dedicating large volumes of time towards this for a while. Mostly real job things (and possible new job) that will take up most of my coding time. Once I really have the time to dedicate I think it'll be anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months depending on how complicated it turns out to be. It's likely at least 6 months before I can get something out, but that doesn't mean I'll be solidly coding for six months. Hope that makes sense.

It makes sense and I figured as much! You stated nothing poorly, don't worry.

I still stand by my post.

[Corlanthis]

TL;DR Answer: Moving dueling back to it's own insular website feels like a wasted effort to me. I'm already on Discord for other servers so it requires zero extra effort on my part to take part in Rings of Discord, and I suspect that's true for a lot of people.

Moving to BlaB is going to give me that moment of "Well I have to go to the site, log in. . ." etc and while it's not a major effort, it's one more step during which I may just decide to do something else instead.

Longer Answer: I have a couple of questions regarding what exactly's being expected out of you Kal.

1: What exactly are you being expected to code over from Discord?

A full integration of the Discord bots with automated calling, shifts, duel reporting and so on?

2: What exactly are we expecting Callers to do?

Because I feel like the answer to that question is going to be very dependent on the answer to the first question. And staffing regular, consistent Callers was difficult even during the busier, higher population years of Flashchat.

And obviously, you can't answer the second question Kal, but I think it's a question that *needs* to be looked at if full automated duel integration isn't feasible, and the sooner we know those answers the sooner they can be planned for.

I also would like to note that there was no mention of the Sport Coordinators in either Amal's previous post about moving back to BlaB, or in your post now Kal. Very curious what their thoughts are on this.

[Amaltea]

Discord worked when we had no other option. Yes, a lot of work was put into something that was never meant to be a permanent change. I can't help that. But Discord is not RoH. I've seen people in the Discord chat mention how they never even visit the site anymore. That has to change. It's time to come back home.

Blab works much better than ProChat ever did. The IM (or Private Chat) system is excellent for calling as it opens a new little window that if you want to move off screen you can easily do so. If you work with a smaller screen (like a laptop) you can make the IM a sepparate tab on the browser so that IM never gets lost. Do we have tools? No, not yet. But it doesn't mean we won't get them.

When I asked Kalamere if he could move the tools to Blab he said he had to look at the code. He hasn't done so yet. Will there be a lot of work involved? Yes. Is his time valuable? Yes. But so is Xeno's time and my time and we have spent a lot of our valuable time, not to mention money (servers cost money, Blab was not free), to give you a site and a venew to roleplay at without anyone having to pay a cent.

Now if all you want is to use Discord please let us know now so we can stop wasting our valuable time.

[DUEL Olivia]

I also would like to note that there was no mention of the Sport Coordinators in either Amal's previous post about moving back to BlaB, or in your post now Kal. Very curious what their thoughts are on this.

Sports Coordinators were not given any information until Amal posted up the Coordinators Corner post about BlaB.

I've tested BlaB. The PM system is flawed and is a resource hog since you're required to open new windows to use them. These windows can be condensed into tabs, or kept floating; depending on personal preference. I for one do not like the PM system for not only the above mentioned resource hogging, but also because you're required to be logged into the forums to use them. If you're logged out, by either being timed out or logging out yourself, you will not be able to use the PM system. The whisper function needs not be mentioned because any whispers would be lost in a busy room. Not to mention that currently we only have 1 or 2 callers, as the job has now become more of a room host or simply being around to watch and make sure the bot doesn't break. A job with a maximum 7 people per week (1 caller each single night), and this not including coordinators, standings keepers, etc, can now be done by 2 or 3. There's also the reason that not all browsers seem to fully support the system enough to run it successfully. Safari appears to have issues.

Because of these reasons I'm against calling on BlaB. I've been a caller longer than a coordinator and I have no interest "wasting my valuable time" using a system I don't see growth in. Should Discord no longer be supported, I would sadly put an end to my 7+ years of volunteering for this site ( From calling, to helping with the standings, to doing the standings, to running multiple tournaments and events, to becoming assistant coordinator of Duel of Magic, to becoming the now head Coordinator of Duel of Swords ). My time is valuable as well and I've put much of it, along with free labor, into this site. And even if Kalamere were to make tools on BlaB, I would not have interest in them as a player and volunteer when Discord can offer much better.

Speaking of growth. Discord has gained the community what it needs the most, and that is new players. There are multiple Discord RP communities and it is far easier to promote and draw in interest with a growing platform such as Discord. BlaB, from my point of view, is nostalgia for what once was there. Some players enjoyed Flashchat and got used to how it is, and they do not wish to move on to a new platform that's different. That's their prerogative but we also must think of the future. BlaB as a chat is great for just that, simply Roleplaying with nothing added on. You can ignore issues with the PM system and anything else so long as the core function of the chat continues to run. This will not work for dueling.

The reason we moved to Discord, you see, is because of that. When Flashchat was replaced by Prochat we on Rings of Honor were waiting for the time. Would we share the chat, would we get a Prochat for our own? I personally wanted a shared chat: but we did not get that. We instead were forced to continue the use of Flash Chat. When bugs were found, one large one which caused a DNS error on players, callers, and coordinators alike, it was reported to the Bug Forum and never saw a timely response ( The first post made 8th of April, the first Administration response on the 4th of June, the conclusion and shutting down of Flash Chat from ROH being June 6th). Post after post, week after week, on this bug forum for the same reason: the DNS error locking community members out from not only ROH, but the RDI site as well (One lockout being for 2 hours). Because of this and the number of callers dwindling, we - the coordinators - were forced to make a judgement call to bring dueling to Discord. And.. it's been going well! We've seen an upswing in dueling and there's been new players joining in.

The question can be then asked: "Why did none of us speak up in the BlaB discussion on DM? We saw many pro-BlaB posts, why did you not speak up?"
Because we were not sure if it even involved us. Without communication from Administration, we were left in the dark. No posts were made in the Admin Forums, no front page link to the discussion on ROH. The only information given to us had been the post the whole community saw not even a week back. I only learned of the DM discussion by facebook. It's hard to bridge the gap between two communities that are supposed to be the same when there appears to be favor for one side over the other.

[Eden Parker]

More than anything, what I would really like is a thoughtful response from Amaltea to Jewell's comment about the future of our community.

I think that's what I've wanted for a long time. A response.

Concern over the dwindling numbers of active players and how to address that has come up many times over in public discussions since I've been a part of the RoH community. It has come up in the context of discussing new duelers' experiences, discussing IFL, in a 2016 post-mortem thread, in discussions about advertising the site, about creating a membership coordinator position, and about creating incentives for new duelers. It was also raised as a concern and discussed on the staff boards. Through all of that, there was no response from the Admins.

Meanwhile, the site itself was degrading, and there was again no communication from the Admins about whether features, like icons, would ever be restored. When it was announced that FlashChat was going away, we were discouraged from discussing it on RoH. Despite a steadily decreasing number of callers, we haven't had a Caller Coordinator for more than a year. When ProChat was implemented on DM we were told that a separate license was not purchased for RoH. When the FlashChat started to break down, staff requests for assistance were ignored or simply just never seen.

So if it seems like we took matters into our own hands and started making plans for the future of the site and the future of dueling, then that's because we had no other choice.

You say that you've put time and effort into maintaining a free place for us to play. But dueling requires participation from many, many people to make it work. And those people put a lot of time and effort into it too. And you've rewarded that effort by refusing to discuss significant changes to the site with them. You've rewarded that effort by never communicating your plans, or never simply asking their opinions about how things are working on a day-to-day basis.

You say you've never taken a dime from us---but I think you know that's because you want it that way. Because, heaven forbid, we actually have some investment in this site, we might have some expectations in how it's run, or in the least, how you communicate with us.

Roleplay and dueling are collaborative. Coordinators, callers, duelers, and roleplayers are all essential to making the game run. Yet you treat your members, your volunteer staff, like we're whiny, petulant children, instead of valuable participants.

We asked for Discord. We explained why we wanted it. A part of that reasoning was for the long-term health and future of the community, as Jewell articulated so well again today. You responded that Discord would be temporary, and you would create something new. You did not respond to concerns about the future of the community.

Now, again, you want to make a decision for this community without ever discussing it with those of us who have put our own time and effort into the site.

I think BlaB is a fine analog for the flash chat. I think, given the state of our caller schedule, that it's asking a lot to expect callers to call on BlaB. But I think you might be right to be concerned about the way that Discord may decrease engagement with the forum site---even though forum engagement had already been declining dramatically on RoH.

That said, you didn't ask for my opinion. Kal did.

So I'm presented with a choice. Continue to support you and your choices while getting zero support or communication back. Or to continue putting my time and energy into a place that respects and solicits my opinion, that tries to respond to the needs and requests of our community, and that has actually seen results in community growth.

You tell me. What would you do?

[Amaltea]

We were going to install ProChat on RoH. But after using ProChat, we decided not to because, to put it plain, it sucks. I was not going to force the players to use it when FC was still working here, with all its bugs. Plus the ProChat company closed their shop before I was able to buy another license. We put off the server upgrade for years because it was difficult to find a suitable chat. But we were forced to do it and flash chat broke. I spent time looking for a chat program that did not require a subscription, suddenly found Blab.

Blab had to be tested first, so put it in the RDI. It is now installed here in RoH (the company said I could run two different instances of the chat as long as they are on the same server, without me having to pay for another). And the RDI chat has all the dueling rooms listed.

Whenever I see the comment about "the only way I found out about this was because of FB" or "because someone told me about it" I find it like an excuse for not participating and another reason for bringing people back home. As a player, you play here, you are responsible for checking the site and reading what's going on and participate in discussions. Facebook is not RoH or RDI, we have a presence there but that's not where we play.

[Kalamere]

I think the finding out from facebook thing is actually a bit more prevalent on the RDI side, since there's no direct OOC boards there to make announcements on. It actually took me a long while to realize I needed to be looking at the DM forums (since they are entirely separate forums) for that sort of thing. But, that said, I do agree that we want people to get their site news from the site whenever possible.

I think the fact of the matter though is that some people are just not going to use the boards. Even with site chat in place, if all you want to do is go and play, then you're just going to do that and you're not going to see anything on the forums. That's a personal choice more than anything. It's like people not knowing about the work on discord despite my having started posting about it a year prior. Some didn't see it. Could be someone that doesn't care about RoH and only really plays RDI, could be someone that just wants to play in chat and not read. Could be someone who saw my name and knew I was too long winded to bother reading.

Point is that I don't think where we chat necessarily dictates use of forums or not.

What I want us to do here is to utilize the technology that best meets the needs of the community. With BlaB we can put admin notices across in a banner. With Discord we can (and have) make server announcements for people to see and follow links back to the forums. It's something we can solve for in either case.

Which is our desired chat solution though and why. What helps us best to, minimally, retain the people we have and, ideally, add some new blood.

[Canaan]

What benefit is there to having a chat on this dying forum that few if any people have joined (independent from Dragon's Mark) for a long time?

What good is it to have a set of calling tools when we don't have callers to use them?

2: What exactly are we expecting Callers to do?

This one's not a question but I'm going to quote it anyway:

More than anything, what I would really like is a thoughtful response from Amaltea to Jewell's comment about the future of our community.

So I'm presented with a choice. Continue to support you and your choices while getting zero support or communication back. Or to continue putting my time and energy into a place that respects and solicits my opinion, that tries to respond to the needs and requests of our community, and that has actually seen results in community growth.

You tell me. What would you do?

These questions seem to have been ignored or overlooked. I'd quote everything I assume overlooked, but then I'd just be quoting entire posts. Figured I'd start with these before moving on to the other talking points.

[Goldglo]

Opening Disclaimer: I haven't tried BlaB yet - I'm going to log into it tonight, so I can't yet write with any sort of authority as to whether the PM system, browser compatibility issues, etc. would or would not hinder the playing/dueling/calling experience.

Opening Disclaimer 2: While it's been in use for several months now, I'm still not super comfy with Discord, but I'm getting there. It helps that my D&D crew has started using it so I'm having more interaction with the platform. That interaction breeds familiarity, which I suspect will lead to me being as comfy with Discord as I was with FlashChat and AOL rooms once upon a time.

The above aside, one of the big advantages with Discord is mobile friendliness. Others have addressed that aspect above so I won't rehash. Another giant advantage is the calling bot. While I hated the thing at first and am still not adept at using it (my 'old-dogs-new-tricks' brain says: "IM human! Human must call!"), the fact of the matter is that the tool's pretty darn intuitive and easy to use. Too, the amount of folks willing and able to call duels at this point is very very small. The caller-bot permits dueling (and associated roleplay) to carry on regardless of whether a human volunteer is available and, whether it's a direct correlation or not, we've had a pickup in the amount of dueling (and role-playing) since the transition to Discord.

Would that trend continue with a shift to BlaB? Maybe, maybe not. I suspect things would drop off again but I can't predict the future. As things stand today though, with BlaB not having a dueling tool or an automated calling system, I don't believe we have the human volunteer resources to host calling shifts for more than a day or two a week, much less every day.

I fully recognize that time, effort and $ has been put into the research, acquisition and implementation of the BlaB platform - let me state for the record that I appreciate all of that. At the end of the day, for me, it comes down to where the community will be most successful and thrive. If that's BlaB, huzzah! If that's Discord, huzzah! We've seen the positives of Discord thus far, especially in getting new players to come check stuff out, because we desperately need such.

As I wrote up top, I'll check out BlaB; I'm fully willing to give it a go. But as others have stated earlier this chain, this is ultimately about far more than a chat/playing/dueling platform. This is about our community, where we're all headed, and how much volunteer staff we have to not just maintain the status quo, but get us to where we want to go. This is as much about people as it is a playing platform, and how we all work together to utilize both to their maximum benefit for the community at large.

--Matt

[DUEL Claire]

I also would like to note that there was no mention of the Sport Coordinators in either Amal's previous post about moving back to BlaB, or in your post now Kal. Very curious what their thoughts are on this.

Sports Coordinators were not given any information until Amal posted up the Coordinators Corner post about BlaB.

I've tested BlaB. The PM system is flawed and is a resource hog since you're required to open new windows to use them. These windows can be condensed into tabs, or kept floating; depending on personal preference. I for one do not like the PM system for not only the above mentioned resource hogging, but also because you're required to be logged into the forums to use them. If you're logged out, by either being timed out or logging out yourself, you will not be able to use the PM system. The whisper function needs not be mentioned because any whispers would be lost in a busy room. Not to mention that currently we only have 1 or 2 callers, as the job has now become more of a room host or simply being around to watch and make sure the bot doesn't break. A job with a maximum 7 people per week (1 caller each single night), and this not including coordinators, standings keepers, etc, can now be done by 2 or 3. There's also the reason that not all browsers seem to fully support the system enough to run it successfully. Safari appears to have issues.

Because of these reasons I'm against calling on BlaB. I've been a caller longer than a coordinator and I have no interest "wasting my valuable time" using a system I don't see growth in. Should Discord no longer be supported, I would sadly put an end to my 7+ years of volunteering for this site ( From calling, to helping with the standings, to doing the standings, to running multiple tournaments and events, to becoming assistant coordinator of Duel of Magic, to becoming the now head Coordinator of Duel of Swords ). My time is valuable as well and I've put much of it, along with free labor, into this site. And even if Kalamere were to make tools on BlaB, I would not have interest in them as a player and volunteer when Discord can offer much better.

Speaking of growth. Discord has gained the community what it needs the most, and that is new players. There are multiple Discord RP communities and it is far easier to promote and draw in interest with a growing platform such as Discord. BlaB, from my point of view, is nostalgia for what once was there. Some players enjoyed Flashchat and got used to how it is, and they do not wish to move on to a new platform that's different. That's their prerogative but we also must think of the future. BlaB as a chat is great for just that, simply Roleplaying with nothing added on. You can ignore issues with the PM system and anything else so long as the core function of the chat continues to run. This will not work for dueling.

The reason we moved to Discord, you see, is because of that. When Flashchat was replaced by Prochat we on Rings of Honor were waiting for the time. Would we share the chat, would we get a Prochat for our own? I personally wanted a shared chat: but we did not get that. We instead were forced to continue the use of Flash Chat. When bugs were found, one large one which caused a DNS error on players, callers, and coordinators alike, it was reported to the Bug Forum and never saw a timely response ( The first post made 8th of April, the first Administration response on the 4th of June, the conclusion and shutting down of Flash Chat from ROH being June 6th). Post after post, week after week, on this bug forum for the same reason: the DNS error locking community members out from not only ROH, but the RDI site as well (One lockout being for 2 hours). Because of this and the number of callers dwindling, we - the coordinators - were forced to make a judgement call to bring dueling to Discord. And.. it's been going well! We've seen an upswing in dueling and there's been new players joining in.

The question can be then asked: "Why did none of us speak up in the BlaB discussion on DM? We saw many pro-BlaB posts, why did you not speak up?"
Because we were not sure if it even involved us. Without communication from Administration, we were left in the dark. No posts were made in the Admin Forums, no front page link to the discussion on ROH. The only information given to us had been the post the whole community saw not even a week back. I only learned of the DM discussion by facebook. It's hard to bridge the gap between two communities that are supposed to be the same when there appears to be favor for one side over the other.

Take out 7+ years and sub in 5+ years and this is pretty much me. I don't feel like repeating things other people have already said when half of it gets skipped over anyways.