[Proposal] Split Discords for Each End-User Image

[nicknamenamenick]

Why?

The current Universal Blue discord situation can be confusing to new users currently. If each end-user image was its own Discord instead of grouping the project together in one big one. Confusion may occur when they enter the Discord and see other projects here when they intended to join to talk only about one. For example, a Bazzite user wants to join the Bazzite Discord, but joins to see that this Discord is named "Universal Blue", which is fine because Universal Blue is mentioned on the website. Then they skip the roles and are now asking Bazzite related questions in the #general text channel.

My proposal is to rebrand the current Universal Blue Discord to Bazzite since it's the most popular image and moving thousands of users elsewhere is a lost cause. There will be separate Discords for Bluefin, Aurora, uCore, and a general Universal Blue management/maintainers/contributors/custom-tooling (this last Discord is similar to what the current Universal Blue used to be before it was linked publicly.) This also follows suit with other Fedora Atomic Desktop images that are not under the Universal Blue umbrella, but may use tooling from us (or from the BlueBuild project) where they each have their own separate Discord regardless if they share contributors, like the secureblue and wayblue Discords since both projects are separate entities with different target audiences.

Issues and challenges that can potentially occur with this new structure

• Less active moderation for each individual project.
• Directing non-Bazzite users to the appropriate Discord.
• Changing the current Universal Blue Discord text channels, roles, etc. to fit Bazzite exclusively.

Your feedback

It would be helpful to give a "+1" or a "-1" to this issue, and please comment on how strongly you feel that this should or should not be done. Thank you.

[castrojo]

+1, @marcoceppi has some ideas on how to split them. Does ublue need it's own discord tho?

[p5]

I'm not strongly opposed to rebranding the existing Discord, but (as you said) keeping development-related discussions for all images under the ublue umbrella as one Discord would improve communication between projects.

That being said, I feel like the other official images may be best as a single Discord, since users of the other images are more tinkerers and more likely to want to try the other projects. So maybe a Bazzite Discord and a Universal Blue Discord, containing dev and the other official image channels, with a Bazzite channel linking elsewhere.

[xynydev]

+1.0 for end-users, this would be great for big images like Bazzite with a less contai-nerdy audience, and could allow people to chat more freely about gaming, and whatever it is that Bazzite users like to chat about.

-0.6 for the community feeling big, accessible, and discoverable. Siloing chats and support into more different discords means more fragmentation and duplication of efforts. If dev discussions are also separated, coordination of efforts could become harder, and if the dev chats are separated from the community contributing might feel less accessible.

+1.0 for a broader and better organized contai-nerdy discussion platform focused on the different ublue dev efforts and direction, with technical discussions happening in a wholly separate space from supporting users.

-0.4 on losing the historical focus of the current discord (through rebranding to Bazzite), losing/splitting chat history (through removing channels), or confusing some existing users (through creating a new discord for ex. Bazzite and suddenly directing Bazzite support there).

[xynydev]

Does ublue need it's own discord tho?

Need? Maybe not. It would be technically feasible to suffice without.
Want? I don't know about others, but IMHO it's a great and accessible dev community and a synchronous chat-based communication platform serves as a great mechanism for building and sustaining it. I regularly enjoy reading specifically the development-focused ublue channels, it gives great insight into what is happening. Yes, I also follow what's happening on GitHub. No, it doesn't give the full picture, just the cold openings and closings of issues, the reviews of PRs, and the like. Reading the unstructured communication is a more clear way to ingest culture and vision.

That being said, I feel like the other official images may be best as a single Discord, since users of the other images are more tinkerers and more likely to want to try the other projects. So maybe a Bazzite Discord and a Universal Blue Discord, containing dev and the other official image channels, with a Bazzite channel linking elsewhere.

I'm inclined towards that too; Bazzite feels big enough to have it's own space, Bluefin is still playing real nice in the dev space.

[yacoob]

I feel like splitting the discord server would kneecap the exchange of information between devs and users of different images. At the same time, we can probably delineate the sets better, to make it easier for users of one specific image that just swoop by to ask why is their bluetooth broken. How about discord roles that would hide/show channels, plus stronger interactive onboarding that would make sure you have to select a role, or you won't get any channel to talk in?

[xynydev]

How about discord roles that would hide/show channels, plus stronger interactive onboarding that would make sure you have to select a role, or you won't get any channel to talk in?

Discord does provide good tools for creating an onboarding flow. There's at least one option I've seen specifically designed for this; when joining a Discord server a user gets prompted to select the topics they are interested in talking about, and get assigned roles that let them see channels with specifically those topics. I'm not sure if it's already in use, but it should be.

[Zeglius]

-1, would cause more fragmentation and making more of a chore to keep up with other images/contributors, by juggling between servers.

[inffy]

+1 for splitting. not sure how the others should be done but maybe something like

1. bazzite
2. bluefin & aurora
3. ublue dev

I dont know if bluefin and aurora would need their own discords (or if they specifically want separate ones) or would a joined one be enough. also “interactive” onboarding to set the used image which would open the needed channels. easy to take both roles if user uses/wants both.

specific one for dev/contributor etc one could be good to share the development etc stuff. but that is already atleast two discord servers more. also if the dev server is unused then the development might get siloed. Or then this can be in the bluefin/aurora discord

[atimeofday]

I have not been the most involved so my input has limited weight, but my thoughts are:

-1 for split in general, fragmentation is usually bad and may cripple technical development of all sub-projects

-1 for renaming the main server for Bazzite, as it would likely crater the main project's discoverability and brand viability, alienate up to thousands of members there, and cause fragmentation

+0.5 for separate additional Bazzite server because that could be beneficial for community and tech support but would also half-cripple the main project and development coordination

"A rising tide lifts all boats" comes to mind, unless something has happened where an influx of contributors to one actively interferes with another and one needs to be forked or abandoned. From an organizational culture and branding perspective, a decision to split off a flagship product/community from a parent project/organization is historically extremely risky for the integrity of both, and tends to result in one or both halves suffering a slow but catastrophic failure or being sacrificed/subsumed.

It very well may be worth splitting the server after all, but I think a decision should be made with that (perhaps unlikely) risk in mind.