On our zoom call a few days ago, Peter asked for recommendations of alternatives to Slack to use for hosting his user forum. After nobody else responded, I decided to check into it myself. After all, I had suggested to him a year ago to replace Slack because of its cost and limitations.
First, I decided to evaluate the WordPress plugin I had already researched last year, bbPress. I spent a few hours setting up a test environment, reading FAQs and evaluating it. After an afternoon of this, I decided it would require too much effort for. substandard admin and user experience.
Then I looked into Discord. What I liked about Discord was its price (free), its ease of setup (no technical skill needed) and its presence (it is popular and worldwide). What I disliked was its gamer-centric GUI. It was a bit chaotic – with graphics exploding everywhere and a twitter like live feed giving me an overall frenetic experience. But, free is good as is ease of setup and admin. I recommended Peter check this out.
His reply was that he had used Discord before and did not like the GUI. He asked for my second best recommendation.
I didn’t have one, but two other forum members had sent me their recommendations so I checked them out.
Two I ruled out for reasons similar to bbPress. Then I looked at the third option.
It was perfect.
Great Apple-like GUI. Simple, intuitive admin and setup. Modest price. Many extra features that could be implemented now or in the future.
After a few hours, I was convinced this was my #1 choice. I summarized my findings and posted my recommendation to Peter and the other members who participated.
I am writing about this because I was a bit surprised how much fun I had doing this mini-project.
I had a blast!
I used to do work like this regularly to find software and systems for business and for personal use.
Now that I’m retired and live a simple life, I rarely have the need to do it anymore. If I’m not working to solve a problem or address a real issue, I have little interest in “playing” with new software just to check it out. I do it occasionally, but I quickly lose interest.
It was so enjoyable I checked out the job openings at the company. They have one for a sales rep, which I assume could be remote.
That could be fun. I’m sure I would crush it at the job.
But there’s no way I’d give up my free time to go back to a FT job.
So instead, I’ll keep my out out for other paid or unpaid projects like this.