When I first started thinking about building a community around my writing, I did what any reasonable person would do: I looked at what everyone else was doing. Discord servers everywhere. Slack workspaces for the more “Serious Minded.” The occasional subreddit. Everyone seemed to have figured out the formula, and the formula was: pick the platform with the most features, the best mobile app, and the lowest friction for new members.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://blog.discourse.org/2025/10/on-building-communities-in-public-why-i-chose-discourse-over-discord