I might have underestimated just how important Discord is in establishing and maintaining a community now, even if the thing the community is for is its own chat

Or if not Discord, at least *something* that doesn't require people to be online simultaneously to communicate, but there is some aspect of having to meet people where they are. I kind of got the impression that people really disliked "hey join our Discord" notices but maybe the issue is more about things like game builds and guides being gatekept behind it. And I'm not sure if the presence of strongly pro-forum people also implies the presence of people who will continually check in on your specific forum in the longterm? It seems like a complicated thing that's affected by community size and activity levels.