While I have a deep respect for all of the above posters
@RMerlin @L&LD , discord is not a fad.
It runs on the following:
Operating system:
Windows;
macOS;
Linux;
iOS;
iPadOS;
Android;
Web browsers
Programming languages:
JavaScript,
Python,
React,
Rust,
Elixir
It has over 250million users worldwide, whereas IRC has gone from a peak of 1 million users in 2004 to aprox only 400,000 today. Indeed I used to use IRC back then daily and it was great in its day.
While discord now is technically a company, it was also created and is still maintained by enthusiasts.
It has VOIP, video conferencing, screen sharing,content delivery and instant messaging technologies. Discord also "just works"
I don't wish to make this sound like an advert for discord, I am merely a user who runs a few servers, but I would suggest that 90% of the gaming community use it daily, including but not limited to twitch streamers, you tubers and gamers. Personally I find it an invaluable tool to what I do online.
That said I have now opened a server called "The IT Crowd" yes it's a bit tongue in cheek, but we are aiming to keep it light hearted. I will post on another thread about this later when we are ready to go live.
It is essentially the cream of the gaming community thus far, and we are making it a Nerd place to idle, it automatically follows reddit/linux / windows / networking / technology in some rooms, and also maketecheasier from you tube, and linustech. I am also adding RSS feeds from geekness around the net. So you can see live as new threads are posted there. We are also offering support to gamers and the community via a bot that runs a ticket system where any of our staff(volunteers) can help with a ticket. We are also not on call 24/7, we operate during usual EU gaming hours, perhaps US gaming hours in the future. Tickets are answered when we can on a voluntary basis, that is the basic premise of our operation.
I will be looking for people who simply just want to "hangout" or need support, but also people who can volunteer their services as support. So far we have support people that deal in windows/linux/networking/hardware, python and c#. That said we are a volunteer based community, it is very early days, we have no website as such and we are also there for fun or to talk about the pros and cons of the next best chip or graphics card.
PS It would also be nice to get more oldies on board as a rather cool 49 year old sometimes even I wish there were a few more seniors around to keep my company in my twilight years
PPS I to avoid whatsapp and bookface like the plague. Despite persistent requests at work.
More to follow in due course if anyone is interested I will probably be sending invites on a DM basis.
Love <3 Matt