I have made a small invite-only Discord for Inform 7 authors

mostly because i really hate asking for help for stupid and simple things. ive been trying to figure out how to implement a button and/or a breakable wooden door in the first room since last night and i need pointers. ideally i want to invite people with a lot of time on their hands like me but im willing to invite anyone who’s cool and willing to talk shop about IF and other things.

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i will DM anyone who is interested.

I struggle to see the benefit of having these useful Inform 7 programming solutions in a closed environment where others cannot find them, rather than having them here? :thinking:

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You’ll probably find that most of the parser users here tend to lean a little old school and avoid Discord, preferring the slower pace of threads. Additionally, many of them prefer helping out with questions on the forum because of the increased accessibility for future newcomers who might ask very similar questions, in terms of archiving and searchability. Discord logs are pretty ephemeral!

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youre probably right, this is just a me thing. maybe i’ll publish them.

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are me and possibly you some of the youngest people here? i wish more people my age knew of this art form :cry:

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Most of the forum skews a bit older, yes. Particularly when it comes to the parser side of things, though there are notable exceptions. I would say people are generally in their 40’s on that side of things, (I’m more so on the choice-based side of authoring and playing) but it’s a generalization.

I would encourage you to ask your questions on the forum- people are very friendly, and it increases the helpfulness of their answers by making them more widely available. You never know how many other people might have the same, or similar questions- not just on the forum, but also possibly searching the internet and stumbling across an answer on a post here!

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okay, thank you. sorry U_U

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Yeah, I’m a big fan of Discord for social things, but I think a forum is a much better venue for getting technical help. When I’m digging into obscure Inform things I frequently have to search up decade-old threads, often from people who are no longer active here; on Discord, all that knowledge would just be lost.

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…in time, like tears in rain…

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Every time I find an API that advertises a Discord in lieu of documentation, I can be certain that I will never find my answers with a search and I will instead need to ask a question that has been answered dozens of times before, buried under hundreds of conversations, but only if the Discord is still alive. My question will also interrupt a conversation before waiting for an answer.

Solutions are much easier to find here, people rarely need to repeat themselves, and solutions go back decades.

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(Heh, I was considering ending the post with that exact line, but I decided against it in the end.)

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I think the more positive way to bring my message is to say: don’t worry about asking for help for stupid or simple things! They usually turn out not to be that stupid and simple. (And if they actually are stupid and simple, still no worries.)

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There’s also ifMud that’s been around for 26 years and is 99.9% used as a channel based chat environment.

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Yeah, ifMUD will definitely make an impression whether you choose to hang around or not. If you’re curious, here’s the link:

http://ifmud.port4000.com/

And if you want to know more about them first, there’s actually a small Wikipedia page on them here:

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Though I very much share other people’s views that this is a fantastic place - i.e. this forum here - to ask Inform programming questions, I thought I should mention there is already an Inform 7 Discord server. It’s called “Inform 7” and is at Discord (if that direct link works). It doesn’t get a huge amount of activity, but has a fair bit. And lots of sub sections for different purposes.

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Thanks for the inclusion. I think you might need an invite link, otherwise it just dead-ends if you aren’t already joined to the server. If you click on the server name, there should be a drop down menu of options which includes “invite people”. If you click that option, copying an invite link should be possible.

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Thanks for the heads up! Here’s an invite link that should keep working:

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