Viperpit(s).org
General discussion, User presentation & Admin => Announcements => Topic started by: Red Dog on October 26, 2025, 05:16:02 AM
-
Gents,
I am not a fan of discords but I feel forum are dying and being replaced all over the place with Discord servers.
The issue is that nowadays the information is scattered all over multiple discords servers and there is no specific place to discuss cockpit building. And the later we try to organise this, the more difficult it will be.
I'd like to step up and start creating such a discord server and try with your help to make it successful and useful for our needs
I don't think the structure of a discord will ever replace a forum, but discords offers many extra advantages we are missing from this forum
I do not want this discord to replace VP but to expand the capabilities of Viperpit mostly for F-16 cockpits but also for other airframes which deserve their own cockpit builder structures
So the prototype discord server is created and currently only advertized here for now
It's totally open for suggestion from VP members and anyone seeing the invite below is free to join and bring his stone to the project
Let's make it what we want of it
Click this link to join the CombatSim Cockpits discord server
https://discord.gg/grdhjnQRu5
And all your comments are welcome
-
I'm in. But your invite link shows invalid for me.
-
Same here
-
Weird, I checked the link and it works for me. And some others are able to join.
let me know your discord name and I will send an invite
-
I'm in :cheerleader:
although I am a little less "active" the last few months ...
-
I'm in :thumbsup:
-
Me too :thumbsup:
-
RD,
I am not a fan either and I would like to know whats to gain by doing this. I fear it will split what posts we have now and my time is already very limited. I personally dont want to have to follow two forums. However, you are far more active than me and I respect you and your knowledge and your insight so I will support it.
Nigel
-
I'm also in - but just reading the "f-16" part right now makes my eyes hurt.
Never been a big Discord fan. I guess, I'm just too old and don't have enough ADHD, so I usually like to look for and read things in a well laid out and structured form ;)
-
Well Michi, it's the same for all of us old farts :)
That said, we can organize it as we want, so all it takes is to define a structure that works best.
That's not done yet because the structure needs to be defined from the content. At this time we only have 1 F16 section, but there's nothing preventing us to create more and organise better, but user feedback is wanted for that.
Discord is also much easier to manage than a forum IMHO.
The only thing more difficult to manage on Discord are ... users
But just like a forum, the search tool need to be used
And remember the goal is not to replace VP but to supplement it. Although let's face it, Viperpit is not quite well organised either.
I hope we can use discord for open discussions and instant chat over specific issues and link VP content as often as possible
Inevitably we will have redondancies and we will have some items discussed only here or there. But in the end, it will be depending on the user to keep their content well organised.
It will become what we makes out of it :)
-
RD,
I am not a fan either and I would like to know whats to gain by doing this. I fear it will split what posts we have now and my time is already very limited. I personally dont want to have to follow two forums. However, you are far more active than me and I respect you and your knowledge and your insight so I will support it.
Nigel
Hey Dave, valid points. Quite honestly I share them as well
Let's turn back a few years and do you like me have the impression that Viperpit activity is decaying?
I do !
It's the same all over, forums were great when forum where the only media.
Then came facebook, twitter, instagram and forums lost their uniqueness and many same project evolved in parallel depending on the media used.
Back then forum remained important because the other media were not that massive.
Nowadays they are much more massive and unfortunately we don't hear about solutions being developped on Facebook because we (I know I do) will not have a facebook account. It's a choice we live with and that's all right.
Again, it's the same in flight sim forums, modelling forums, any forum...
it's a trend and we can fight it but we will be left in place if we don't adapt :)
and the consequence of that is less traffic on the forum, and therefore less interest to participate in the forums - and the mary go round starts turning.
It got worse a few years ago when reddit and discord become very popular.
But that again makes the forum less attractive because "old fashioned" and not quite as fast as the majority of users nowadays requires.
Today when you look for an answer to a problem, asking the question here on VP is not sufficient, because the audience is not (anymore - unfortunately) broad enough. because the solutions are way more numerous than 10 years before and we remain a niche in a niche. So if you want to get that answer, you need to go on reddit or on discord to maximises your chance to get an answer.
then comes the realisation that there is nowhere a dedicated discord for cockpit building. There are plethora of cockpit builders asking questions and getting answers but on many different discord servers. and you cannot search them because simply you do not know where to search and even if you would there are too many to search because the information is scattered all over.
On the other hand Viperpit is a gold mine. But it's a mine with many galleries and it takes an awful lot of time to find your way in here
We tried to keep it organised but the old forum engine, the lack of modern tools, the users and the rapid changing world of cockpit building makes it very complicated for both users and moderators to keep it organised.
It's much better than before I reckon, but still the subject we develop are not subject oriented, they are ppl oriented.
How can I know that a best backlighting solution than mine is possible and within my reach if I don't read Moon's WIP topic ?
I'm here since 2004 and I have trouble sometimes. What about a guy joining in 2025?
It's not a critic, it's basically an argument to illustrate the fact that organisation is easy when it's 1 person with 1 goal but it's more complicated if not impossible when it's 150 members each with a different perception of the purpose of Viperpit.
The goal of creating a discord is to address that very issue primarily:
I think Moon perfectly understood the way it's supposed to work this morning on the Discord server:
Someone ask a specific questions and Moon answered by orienting different possibilities here on VP, linking to specific post on his WIP topic.
Perfectly done.
I linked my free 3D work from Discord to VP giving direct links embedded in other long post. Michi did the same
The videos don't work here, they work on Discord
You can get annoucement from other servers, news for sims, news from software, etc etc
You can get voice and discuss specific items when doing it in writing isn't efficient
You can share screens to explain more complicated matters
And many more
All these things cannot be done on the forum. these tools are really too good to be ignored
The second goal is to establish VP credential on a Discord server and takes a place no one other thought about creating.
We have a solid base, I think we should use it and model it at VP's image which has always been a great place to participate in mostly because of the maturity of the vast majority of the users (we had a few renegades too)
Will this work?
No idea. Again, it will work if we do what it takes to make it work.
Will it be simple?
Certainly not. The impetuous users will be harder to manage on Discord than on a forum
Will it be challenging?
Definitely
What there is to gain?
On the personal point of view of guys willing to invest time in this, only more work,
On the VP point of view: more traffic, increase the user base, switch to modern tools, get broader answers to your question, Overcome the VP structure by adding a human direction to it (like Moon did), and enlarge the VP legacy.
Will there be duplicate
Yes
but there are already duplicates today, just as I explained above. There are many F-16 pit solution that are discussed on other places and totally unknown to VP. So the duplication is not a problem. By creating our own Discord, if this works we would actually decrease the duplicity (that is if you accept to use both and not exclusively VP or Discord
I see Discord as a lively index or table of contents for VP or other aspect of sim flying/building
I don't see my WIP topic being on Discord, that's simply not possible
But by using both, we can get way more efficient than by using a single one
Compared to a forum Discord is "controlled" chaos but it presents the advantage to bring members closer to each other with modern tools.
And if the base is strong and if we all understand that the point is not to replace VP but to support and enlarge it, then it will be a success
-
Joined!!!
-
As someone closer to the age demographic for Discord I would agree that this is a difficult time for forums.
At least now Discord has the ability to create threads similar to how forums work.
It is a shame because I find I have to proactively think about coming back to ViperPits forum while Discord and Facebook are in the forefront of my daily social operation. Consequently I am more likely engage when it is used through a portal I frequent.
-
Two thoughts:
1. I think there is less traffic here because there are less people building pits here. A lot of the OG's have finished their pits and dont post a lot.
2. I think this is a bad idea and I already see the same guys on Discord as here. But maybe i'm missing something obvious. Is the F-16 thread just one long thread going back to the start?
I am not going to post my build thread on two different forums. The same thing happened on the BMS public and Dev forums, its a disaster in my opinion. RD, it reminds me of when you called out everyone that wanted to split off in to building different blocks and different airframes. You were right so i am a bit surprised that you started this. I will say that i am extremely happy it's you that is running it. You have really improved VP A LOT! One of the major fuckups here is when Photobucket screwed everyone. We lost a lot of great pics. But its all good, I just doubt I will use Discord much if at all. I dont see any real purpose to it. But I am willing to try.
-
I will just stick to VP.
-
I just wanted to chime in and say that I am sorry because most of the messages in the F-16 channel in the new Discord are written by me trying to answer some newcomer questions.
Indeed Discord is a little bit chaotic (it's a chat after all), and maybe with some etiquette it can be a useful funnel to point people to the informations already contained in the forum instead of a replacement/duplication.
A suggestion would be to use it as a mean to publish news about the build threads (and not vice-versa), so that there is a single source of truth ( = the forum) and let the Discord chat only being a useful discussion tool, keeping threads more clean.
Just my 2 cents.
-
That's the idea Jay.
I also reorganised the F-16 section with subrooms for better organisation. All of this is still WIP gents, so bear with me
-
@Red Dog
I think I brought up a Discord idea for us a while back - but it got shot down. Glad to see you've got one up and running. I see Discord as an extension for our builder community and not a replacement.
One of the areas Discord could enhance for us is seminars or virtual 'sim fest' events. Since we can share live video or screens - ViperPit builders can hold workshops on topics (electronics, painting, riveting, etc). We could possibly have a yearly virtual ViperPit online event that could be organized with presenters discussing topics, presenting airshow footage, simpit walk-arounds and flying together.
Thoughts?
-
All very good ideas JCook and I now see the same advantages - it's totally open for now and advertized only here for VP readers to join
But anyone is free to step up and create content and event to make it live - as long as the idea is not to replace VP but indeed to supplement VP
I haven't asked anyone, but at some points we'll need mods and assign roles accordingly.