I really like this new language. Helps in my mind to delineate the two and seems to structure the platform in topic-oriented vs person-oriented conversations.
And then if one is having a good private chat and thinks it could be easier to discuss as a topic itself, could then break out those parts as a private topic, perhaps even adding other people to participate in the topic-oriented conversation over time.
Side note: I’m noticing that I’m typing a lot more on Discourse right now than I ever did before and I think it has a lot to do with the chat feature lowering the barrier to entry for me contributing.