Proposal: permanently adopt Discord for community communication

Proposal: Permanently adopt Discord for community communication

Date: 2026-02-22

Background Summary

On September 10, 2025, the community consensed to move from Google Groups to Discord for a 6 month trial period. At the February 11, 2026 ACM, the community reviewed the use of Discord with mostly positive feedback (minutes here). The pros and cons as discussed at that ACM are summarized below.

How this proposal intends to address the issue

This proposal is to affirm continued use of Discord going forward. Multiple members have offered continued 1 on 1 help with Discord, and channels can be consolidated, split out, or clarified as needed. Should Discord policies or pricing change (or should the community's needs change), we can explore alternatives.

Pros:

• Flexible participation: Members can opt in/out of channels and notifications based on relevance.

• Better organization: Channels and threads keep discussions grouped by topic.

• Improved committee coordination: Easier for committees to collaborate and track discussions.

• Improved transparency: Members can stay informed without actively participating in every area or attending every meeting.
• Excellent for real-time coordination: Especially useful for immediate needs like rides or requests.
• Separates community and personal communication: Keeps personal email inboxes cleaner.
• Free: currently free. 

Cons/Challenges:

• Limited external accessibility: Non-members cannot easily contact the community via Discord.
• Easy to fall behind: No built-in “catch-up summary” mechanism.
• Steeper learning curve than email: Some members need help with the ins & outs of Discord; onboarding can be challenging.
• Unclear channel structure: Sometimes difficult to know what topics should go in which channels.
• Not ideal as a permanent archive: Better suited to live communication than long-term documentation (but we have the wiki for documentation).
• Search limitations: Less powerful than email search as history grows.