Use a proper forum instead of Discord

[luishugoooo]

The coolLabs Discord is very active and helpful, but unfortunately Discord as a platform is not really optimal to run a forum, because it is not indexable by search engines. Solutions for problems therefore may exist, but are being gatekept by simply existing in the depths of Discord. I'd propose hosting something like Discourse for community support.

[ShadowArcanist]

Thanks a lot for the suggestion — you raise a valid point. Discord isn’t ideal for surfacing previously answered questions, especially since it’s not indexed by search engines. Helpful info can definitely get buried in threads over time.

That said, we’ve intentionally chosen Discord as our main support channel for a few key reasons:

• Internal use: Our team uses Discord for daily operations and community coordination, so keeping everything in one place makes it easier and faster to respond.
• Custom tooling: We’ve built a custom Discord bot to manage and tag support posts — it’s deeply integrated into our workflow.
• Higher engagement: Most of our users are already active on Discord. Moving to a platform like Discourse would likely fragment the community and reduce participation.
• Privacy: Sometimes users accidentally share sensitive details (like IPs). Discord being a closed platform helps prevent those from being indexed by search engines — something that would be a serious issue on a public forum.

Also worth noting: if we were to move from Discord to Discourse, a large portion of the community likely wouldn’t follow. It would effectively split (or even kill) the momentum we’ve built. And if we kept both platforms running, that would stretch the team too thin — we’d be dividing attention, and realistically, Discourse would end up inactive on our side.

We don’t have any plans to move off Discord. However, we are looking into tools like AnswerOverflow, which could make selected Discord support threads publicly searchable — giving us the best of both worlds: discoverability without compromising our existing flow.